WEST PALM BEACH (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has not yet expressed complete satisfaction with any nominee for Treasury Secretary after the search stopped over the weekend as he searches for other candidates, two sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.
Among the names now being considered are Apollo Global Management CEO Mark Rowan and former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh, two sources said, according to a separate source familiar with the matter, confirming previous reports by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. .
A number of names have been circulated as potential candidates for the position in the new Trump administration, but no announcement has been made. The two sources said on Monday that the selection team has now expanded the scope of the search.
Billionaire investor John Paulson was originally one of the main contenders but dropped out of the race last week, citing “complicated financial liabilities.” That has left another major contender, investor Scott Besent, though banker Howard Lutnick has also emerged as a major contender, Reuters reported last week. A number of others have also been speculated for the position.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that Bessent was under consideration for the White House National Economic Council, but held off on accepting it until a decision on Treasury secretary was made.
Warsh, 54, is a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and has a long record of hawkish views on inflation and deficits.
A former mergers and acquisitions banker at Morgan Stanley, Warsh was a White House economic policy adviser from 2002 to 2006 and was nominated by then-President George W. Bush to be governor of the seven-member Federal Reserve.
Warsh left the Fed in 2011, just months after joining his colleagues in unanimously supporting an expansion of the Fed’s bond-buying program and then declaring his reservations about expanding the central bank’s balance sheet.
Rowan is CEO of Apollo, one of the world’s largest investors in alternative assets such as corporate credit and private equity, succeeding Leon Black in 2021.
Rowan Worsh did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Bessent spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for Lutnick declined to comment.
It is not clear whether any candidates have been excluded or whether other names could be added to the mix.
Competing for the top floor
The position of Secretary of the Treasury is one of the highest cabinet positions, overseeing the country’s financial and economic policy. As such, it is one of the key roles that global investors and Wall Street are watching.
The top candidates have amassed popular supporters as the process heats up.
Picent’s backers include Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, according to an article last week in Semaphore, and investor Kyle Bass, who wrote on X last week that Picent would be a better choice for markets and citizens.
“I support Besant 100 percent,” Bass told Reuters via text message. “As Treasury Secretary, you must fully understand the bond market, global payments flows, geopolitics, people, financial market flows, inflation, and the federal budget. Scott is by far the best candidate for the job.”
Bass added that Besant was not part of the weekend’s “drama” over who would get the position. “He has been silent and working to find solutions for President Trump,” Bass wrote.
A spokesman for Graham said Monday that he is standing by his position.
Other supporters include Larry Kudlow, who recently said he was a “huge fan” of Besant and that he was his “first choice” to lead the Treasury Department, according to a Nov. 11 Wall Street Journal story; And investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who said that Besant, his former fellow Soros fund manager, was “the only guy I know who is not only involved in the market but who speaks comfortably and comfortably in academia,” according to an Axios story in November. 13.
Kudlow did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Druckenmiller did not respond to a request for comment.
Steve Moore, a conservative economist and Trump adviser, said last week that he strongly favored Bessent, because he was a heavyweight in the center-right movement in Washington that pushes deregulation and tax cuts to boost growth.
“I think most free-market conservatives support Scott Besant,” Moore told Reuters last week.
On the other hand, two of Trump’s senior advisers, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, sided with Lutnick for the position, sending supportive posts on social media.
Musk did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment beyond his post on X. A spokesperson for Kennedy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As of Sunday, Trump was also considering appointing Lutnick to another economic job, perhaps Commerce Secretary, the source familiar with the matter told Reuters, who spoke on condition of anonymity. This source also said that Trump’s former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was being considered for a trade. Lighthizer did not respond to a request for comment on the trade.