“One of the brightest men on Wall Street.” “He has everyone’s respect.” “He’s handsome too.” With these words, Donald Trump recently described Scott Bessent, a little-known hedge fund manager, former Al Gore supporter and former top executive of George Soros’ businesses.
One would not expect Bessed to be an ally of the Republican candidate. But it has become his latest obsession, his cult, as the Wall Street Journal highlights. Trump praised Bessent at an August rally in North Carolina and then surprised him by inviting him on stage. Yesterday he called him “one of Wall Street’s top analysts” during a speech before the Detroit Economic Club.
Bessent, founder of investment firm Key Square Capital Management, caught the former president’s attention last year when he publicly supported Trump while many financial executives were still rallying around Nikki Haley. The 62-year-old man decided to give his full support to the former president when he saw that the legal cases were against him, rather than harming his acceptance. He told People the phenomenon reminded him of a stock that rises despite bad news. And that’s a victory sign for some investors.
Bessent is now Trump’s economic adviser. Many even believe that he could take over the Treasury Department if Trump returns to the White House. The billionaire investor has known the Trump family for decades, although he had not become close to the former president until recently. He is friends with Blaine Trump, the ex-wife of Donald’s late brother Robert.
Bessent visited Trump earlier this year at his mansion in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, where they discussed ways for Trump to turn his ideas into policy. He is also friends with John Paulson, another investor considered a potential Trump Treasury secretary, according to the Wall Street Journal.
From the South to Soros
Bessent grew up in a small town in South Carolina. His mother, a businesswoman, was married five times, including twice to Besent’s father, who went bankrupt due to bad real estate investments. His father’s failure shocked the family and forced him to find his first summer job at age 9.
Besent, who is gay, considered attending the U.S. Naval Academy but was unwilling to lie about his sexuality. Instead, he attended Yale University and began investing after meeting and working for James Rogers, Soros’ first partner.
Bessent joined Soros Fund Management in 1991. He was one of the driving forces behind the company’s huge short sale of the British pound – a bet that the British currency would collapse due to severe weakness in the housing market. The gamble netted the company more than $1 billion in profit in 1992. Bessent was Soros’ chief investment officer from 2011 to 2015 and ran the company for a time. He was again credited in 2013 with a successful bet against the Japanese yen.
He left the company in 2015 to launch his own. Named after a position on a chessboard, Key Square specializes in macro investing, or predicting large market movements using economic and geopolitical information.
Bessent is married to a former New York district attorney, John Freeman, and they have two children. They live primarily in Charleston, where they maintain a historic mansion.