Elon Musk is backing Donald Trump’s co-chairman Howard Lutnick to lead the Treasury Department, touting the billionaire CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald as a potential secretary who will “actually effect change” from the most powerful economic post in the world Trump’s cabinet.
Musk labeled another leading candidate for the job, hedge fund CEO Scott Bessent, as a “business-as-usual choice,” he posted on X, the social media network he bought two years ago. “Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change somehow.”
Musk also said it would be “interesting to hear more people thinking about this so @realdonaldtrump can consider feedback” and that he would be “open to” interviews with Bessent and Lutnick on the X Spaces platform.
“President-elect Trump is making decisions about who will serve in his second administration,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “Those decisions will be announced as soon as they are made.”
Bessent could not be reached for comment.
The Treasury Department remains one of the biggest outstanding question marks in Trump’s new administration, and Musk’s public support of Bessent marks an escalation in a growing battle between different factions of the president’s camp.
Lutnick is a power broker on Wall Street who has fought for the position and used his role in the transition to exert control over what information flows to the president-elect as he weighs personnel decisions, POLITICO reported Friday.
But Bessent, who had maintained a lower public profile while serving as one of Trump’s top advisers during the campaign, emerged as one of the leading candidates for the role in the final days of the race and has a torrid schedule of media appearances and opinion pieces maintained. to broadcast how Trump’s agenda will benefit markets and the economy. Other prominent Trump loyalists and Wall Street players have publicly backed Bessent for the role — including Trump’s former National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow and Steve Bannon. (Kudlow was also rumored to be in the running, but he reportedly removed himself from consideration on Friday.)
At stake is the role of the Treasury Secretary, a powerful position whose jurisdiction includes financial markets, U.S. debt issuance, economic national security issues, tax policy and the strength of the dollar. Voters’ perception of the economy was a driving factor in electing Trump to a second term – 68 percent of voters described the country’s economy as “not that good” or “bad” in the exit poll, and 70 percent of those voters supported Trump – and the incoming president is notoriously sensitive to how markets react to policy decisions and the political environment.
“US markets initially recovered after Trump’s victory. The markets started discounting Scott Bessent as US Treasury Secretary,” hedge fund manager Kyle Bass wrote on X on Saturday morning. “The moment Howard Lutnick decided he wanted the job, the markets sold off. The markets are telling Trump that Bessent is certainly the best choice for the job.”
Musk, the richest man in the world, was ubiquitous at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club and residence in Florida, during the transition.
Lutnick has previously said he has consulted extensively with Musk on ways to reduce government spending. The duo appeared on stage together at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally the week before the election.
“Me, Elon Musk and Trump are going to figure it out,” Lutnick said in a podcast interview last month, describing plans to curb spending.
Lutnick said he informed a cheerful Musk at a meeting before the election that Trump, if elected, would move forward with creating the Department of Government Efficiency.
“That’s what you have to do,” Lutnick told investor and podcaster Anthony Pompliano. “If you have the greatest capitalist in America, and you can make him happy, that’s pretty good.”
