Enough billionaires and multimillionaires have been assembled by Donald Trump to fill key roles in his nascent administration to form a soccer team.
In a recruitment process that appears to mock his campaign’s appeal to working-class voters, the president-elect has brazenly tapped a gallery of mega-rich backers for key positions that, in some instances, will give them power to cut spending on public services that are used by the most poor and vulnerable.
At least 11 picks for strategic positions after Trump returns to the White House in January have either achieved billionaire status themselves, have billionaire spouses or are within touching distance of that threshold.
The net result will be the wealthiest administration in US history – worth a total of $340bn at the start of this week, before Trump further boosted its monetary value by trying to appoint at least three more billionaires.
Its collective wealth easily outstrips that of Trump’s first cabinet, formed after his 2016 election victory – which at the time was the richest US cabinet ever formed, containing such super-rich members as Rex Tillerson, the former chief executive of ExxonMobil, who was appointed secretary of state, and Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, who had become wealthy through restructuring bankrupt companies.
Trump’s cabinet and White House picks – so far
It also throws into stark relief the relative impoverishment of the current cabinet of Joe Biden – collectively worth a relatively paltry $118m despite having been repeatedly derided by Trump as representative of a corrupt governing elite that was cheating ordinary working Americans.
The wealthiest – and most prominent – of Trump’s 2024 class is Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur who is the world’s richest man.
Along with Vivek Ramaswamy, another tech entrepreneur who is said to be worth at least $1bn, Musk has been tapped to spearhead a newly created department of government efficiency, already known by its acronym Doge, whose mission is to cut waste from public spending.
The conspicuously extravagant Musk has pledged to cut $2tn from the national budget. He has not explained how or over what period, although he has warned that it may entail “temporary economic hardships”.
Neither Musk nor Ramaswamy will need Senate confirmation, since Doge is not an official government department or agency.
However, Trump has not shied away from nominating billionaire cabinet members who will have to undergo public Senate hearings at which their wealth may become an issue.
These include Linda McMahon, the nominee for education secretary – and a former World Wrestling Entertainment executive – whose husband, Vince McMahon, is worth an estimated $3bn; the North Dakota governor and former businessman Doug Burgum, designated to be secretary of the interior; Howard Lutnick, the chair and chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, who has been nominated as commerce secretary; and Scott Bessent, a hedge-fund manager and former partner at Soros Investment Management, who has been nominated as treasury secretary.
Their collective worth alone amounts to $10.7bn – $4.5bn more than Trump’s first cabinet.
Others subject to Senate confirmation are Charles Kushner – a property tycoon and father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner – the prospective ambassador to Paris; Warren Stephens, head of an investment bank and chosen as ambassador to London; Jared Isaacman, a commercial astronaut and entrepreneur who has been nominated to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa); and Kelly Loeffler, a former GOP senator and joint head of Trump’s inaugural committee, now his choice to head the Small Business Administration.
All fall under the billionaire bracket either individually or through marital or family links, according to Forbes.
So, too, does Steve Witkoff, another property tycoon and golfing partner of Trump, who has chosen him as his Middle East envoy. Witkoff’s net worth has been estimated at $1bn.
Then there is Frank Bisignano, nominated as head of the Social Security Administration, where he would be responsible for managing the pensions and benefits of the country’s retirees. The president of Fiserv Inc, a Wisconsin-based financial technology firm, his current wealth is estimated at around $974m.
The president-elect has reportedly offered the deputy defence secretary slot to yet another billionaire, Stephen Feinberg, a private equity investor and co-chair of Cerberus Capital Management, whose personal worth as of July this year was assessed at $4.8bn. It is not known whether Feinberg has accepted.
The gulf between Trump’s taste for the wealthy and his populist everyman rhetoric has not gone unnoticed.
Analysts have long noted the ability of a politician who proudly flaunts his own self-proclaimed billionaire status to tap into popular resentment over stagnating incomes and living standards – accentuated by his laments over the loss of industrial jobs and trade deals that he says have harmed American workers.
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, working-class Americans’ real wages have stagnated or declined since the early 1980s, especially as industries moved jobs overseas,” wrote Matthew King, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, in a blog post. “This may help explain Trump’s working class appeal.”
Trump, King argued, could exploit working-class anxieties because he “knew that pride in God, family, and country would resonate in a way that the progressive messages of other candidates didn’t”.
David Kass, the executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, said the goal of what he called Trump’s “government by the billionaires for the billionaires” was huge tax cuts for the super-rich, which would be achieved at the cost of slashing services such as education, social security and Medicaid, which provides healthcare for those with lower incomes.
“Voters wanted a change,” Kass said. “I think what’s going to happen is that people will say, that’s not actually what I wanted. The rich are rich enough and don’t need more tax cuts. How about helping me? I think there’s going to be a huge mobilisation against this [tax cut].”
But King warned that Trump’s emotional resonance may override envy of the rich.
“I still believe that Trump’s working-class appeal will continue to enable him to exploit the working class successfully while funnelling the rewards to the new oligarchy: big businesses and billionaires like Elon Musk,” he wrote.
Robert Tait is a journalist based in Washington DC. He was previously the Guardian's correspondent in Czech Republic, Iran and Turkey.
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