Donald Trump set to appoint Scott Bessent as treasury secretary

US President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly planning to nominate Scott Bessent, a veteran hedge fund investor and former Yale University lecturer, as his treasury secretary, according to media reports on Friday.  

Both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter.

Wall Street has been closely watching who Trump will pick, especially given his plans to remake global trade through tariffs.

Bessent has advocated for tax reform and deregulation, particularly to spur more bank lending and energy production, as noted in a recent opinion piece he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

The market's surge after Trump's election victory, he wrote, signaled investor "expectations of higher growth, lower volatility and inflation, and a revitalized economy for all Americans."

Bessent follows other financial luminaries who have taken the job, including former Goldman Sachs executives Robert Rubin, Hank Paulson and Steven Mnuchin, Trump's first Treasury chief. 

Janet Yellen, the current secretary and first woman in the job, previously chaired the Federal Reserve and White House Council of Economic Advisers.