U.S. President-elect Donald Trump greets Elon Musk before attending a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas, United States.
Brandon Bell | Via Reuters
Donald Trump's first administration was full of super-rich whose total assets exceeded $5 billion, representing an unprecedented marriage of money and executive power.
Trump's second term could make that total look like a chump change.
More than half a dozen of the Republican president-elect's candidates for his new administration are either confirmed billionaires or are widely speculated to be. Numerous others are multi- or hundred-millionaires.
The richest by far is Elon Musk, whom Trump tapped to co-head a bespoke advisory group tasked with reducing alleged government waste.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is the richest person in the world. Estimates put his net worth at over $346 billion and as high as $362 billion.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and former presidential candidate who works with Musk on the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, is worth a billion dollars, according to Forbes.
The nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness estimated last month that the average net worth of Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and their top candidates is $616 million.
For comparison, Forbes estimated the total net worth of President Joe Biden's entire Cabinet at $118 million. And the tax group's analysis is likely a low-level estimate because it was prepared before Trump announced a number of other very wealthy candidates.
In the past week, he appointed billionaire financial services executive Warren Stephens as his ambassador to the UK, billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg as deputy defense secretary and venture capitalist David Sacks as his crypto czar.
Trump also picked Kelly Loeffler, a former U.S. senator who was reportedly considered likely the richest person on Capitol Hill during her time in office, to lead the Small Business Administration.
That same day, he named billionaire CEO Jared Isaacman to head NASA.
Over the weekend, he chose Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, as his candidate for US ambassador to France.
The newcomers join a number of other super-rich Cabinet members, including billionaire Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary, WWE co-founder Linda McMahon as Education Secretary and Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary.
Trump also named billionaire Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany, as a top Middle East adviser.
And Trump chose Dr. Mehmet Oz to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Oz was worth up to $300 million in 2022, according to a New York Times analysis of a financial disclosure Oz filed during his failed bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
He lost that campaign to Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who had worked to portray Oz as out-of-touch — a task made easier when Oz posted a viral video in which he discussed the cost of putting together a raw food platter complained.
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Musk and Ramaswamy do not need to be confirmed by the Senate: Their group will operate outside the government and work closely with the Office of Management and Budget.
But other wealthy Trump picks must navigate the Senate's public confirmation process, shining a spotlight on the myriad potential financial and ethical conflicts they could bring with them.
The plutocrats' rise could also risk diluting Trump's populist brand, which has gained support among working-class voters in the 2024 election.
Certainly being rich hasn't been a burden for Trump. His billionaire status has long been a central feature of his public persona and is part of his appeal for many of his supporters. According to Forbes, he is by far the richest person to ever serve as president and is currently worth more than $6 billion.
But with the government poised to usher in levels of prosperity that dwarf all previous ones, the personal fate of the nominees could become an even more important issue.
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