President-elect Donald Trump has assembled the wealthiest presidential administration in modern history. At least 13 billionaires are set to take on government posts. Trump’s team includes a wrestling magnate, a private space pioneer, a New York real estate giant, and the heir to a small appliance empire—oh, and the wealthiest man on the planet.
Trump’s presidential administration has a combined net worth that could surpass $460 billion, with the Department of Government Efficiency co-head Elon Musk contributing more than $400 billion to that figure. However, even if Musk’s wealth was removed, Trump’s team is still expected to be the richest in history.
“It’s not a surprise that [Trump] surrounds himself with people who come from the same world that he does,” said Jordan Libowitz, vice president of communications for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The billionaire class of businessmen is who he is and who he wants to be seen as, and who he wants to be seen with.”
Trump’s Presidential Administration Team
Department of Government Efficiency co-head Elon Musk is the world’s richest person, with his stakes in Tesla, Space X, Twitter, and AI startup xAI, which makes him worth more than $400 billion, according to Forbes. Musk spent over a quarter of a billion dollars to help return the president-elect to the White Office and is one of the most influential figures on Trump’s team.
Leandro Rizzuto Jr., Ambassador to the Organization of American States, is worth an estimated $3.5 billion. Rizzuto’s family made billions by growing their hair product company, Conair.
Warren Stephens is to become Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Worth an estimated $3.4 billion, Stephens has spent his entire professional career with his family’s Little Rock-based investment bank, where he has been the CEO and president since 1986.
Coming in with up to $3 billion, Linda McMahon is to be the Education Secretary. Along with her husband, Vince McMahon, Linda founded the company that later became World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., the world’s largest wrestling entertainment company. As a Trump supporter, McMahon was the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term in office.
Howard Lutnick has been nominated as the Secretary of the Department of Commerce. Worth around $2.2 billion, Lutnick serves as the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm he joined in 1983.
Charles Kushner is a real estate developer who made billions in building thousands of residential units across New Jersey. In 2005, he was sentenced to 24 months in prison after pleading guilty to multiple felonies, including making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. He has been nominated as Trump’s Ambassador to France and has a net worth of $1.8 billion.
Jared Isaacman, worth $1.8 billion, has been nominated as NASA Administrator. Isaacman is a pioneer in private space exploration and made his fortune after founding the payment processing company Shift4 Payments.
Thomas Barrack Jr., nominated to be the Ambassador to Turkey, has a net worth of $1 billion. In 1991, he founded Colony Capital, a private equity real estate firm now known as DigitalBridge Group and manages more than $80 billion.
Despite his limited experience in foreign affairs, Steven Witkoff is to be the Special Envoy to the Middle East and has a net worth of $1 billion. Witkoff met Trump in a New York deli in the 1980s, and he climbed New York’s real estate late with the president-elect, building a personal fortune of billion dollars.
Frank Bisiganano accumulated a net worth of $1 billion and was one of JPMorgan Chase’s most influential executives during the 2008 recession. He has since taken over the financial services company First Data Corporation.
Reported billionaire Scott Bessent is a protege of Democratic megadonor George Soros. Bessent, who has developed a reputation for bold bets on macroeconomic trends, including making more than a billion dollars by betting against the British pound in the 1990s, has been nominated as Treasury Secretary.
Vivek Ramaswamy is to be the Department of Government Efficiency co-head. As a biotech entrepreneur, Ramaswamy made his fortune through his 10% stake in Riovant Sciences and has a net worth of $1 billion.
Other members of the Trump presidential administration include David Sacks, who founded successful companies after eBay purchased PayPal in 2002 and is to be the AI and Crypto Czar; Kelly Loeffler, worth around $800 million, has been nominated to Administrator of the Small Business Administration.
Doug Burgum, the famous heart surgeon turned TV host, has been nominated as the Interior Secretary. He has a net worth of $100 million. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator, also has a net worth of $100 million.
A Cabinet That Trumps the First
Trump’s second-term presidential cabinet trumps the combined wealth of his administration from his first term, which included Betsy DeVos’s $2 billion and Jeff Zients’s range of $90 million and $443 million.
“Being wealthy by itself is not a disqualifier,” said Kedric Payne, senior director of Ethics at Campaign Legal Center, formerly deputy chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics. “It’s just simply the potential conflicts of interest that are the concern.”
Trump’s appointees will have to divest themselves of stock holdings, potentially raising conflict issues, and will be required to release their financial disclosures. The Office of Government Ethics will review Trump’s nominees and appointees’ assets and financial interests before the Senate confirmation process.
