The Race to Lead Trumps Treasury Dept. Is Becoming a Cliffhanger

ImageRowan and Warsh shake up Treasury raceFew of the unfilled positions in Donald Trump’s cabinet are as important as Treasury secretary.But the question of who will fill the role is only getting cloudier.Allies of two candidates, Howard Lutnick, the transition co-chair, and Scott Bessent, a top economic adviser, publicly stumped for them this weekend.

But The Times reports that the president-elect himself wants somebody “big” for the role and is now considering Marc Rowan, the C.E.O.of Apollo Global Management, and Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor.Elon Musk, Dan Loeb and others are weighing in.

Musk threw his support behind Lutnick over the weekend, calling Bessent “business as usual,” an especially cutting criticism in the Trump camp.That said, The Times reports that Trump has privately griped about Lutnick hanging around too much and potentially manipulating the transition process for his own benefit.Loeb backed Bessent, arguing that choosing Lutnick might rattle investors, including in the $28 trillion market for Treasury bonds and notes.

That said, Bessent is also being floated for positions such as chair of the White House’s National Economic Council.Trump has told associates that he is impressed by Rowan, The Times reports.The president-elect tends to value wealth and status on Wall Street, and Rowan, a co-founder of Apollo who helped turn the firm into a $733 billion investment giant, has plenty of both.Rowan would be likely to reassure many on Wall Street, particularly given how unorthodox some of the other cabinet choices have been.

But it’s unclear whether he would want to take such a public role, especially given his current work at Apollo.(How hard it would be to extricate Rowan from any “key man” provisions in the firm’s funds is another question.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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