As of next January 20, US President-elect Donald Trump and his new government will head to run the country, in a state that witnesses the presence of many billionaires under the umbrella of the billionaire president as well.
The president-elect’s administration brings together a number of billionaires whose total wealth amounts to no less than $360 billion, an amount greater than the gross domestic product of 169 countries, according to data from Forbes’ billionaires list.
Conflict of interest
Voices began to rise within the United States about the possibility of a conflict of interests between the new ministers and their private investments, in addition to the assumption that their influence would be used to make decisions and amend them to suit their own business.
Although Trump focused his election campaign on helping the middle class and fighting corruption, he chose a number of prominent wealthy people to lead his administration.
Video footage is still circulating within the United States of the President-elect when he visited a branch of the McDonald’s restaurant chain and served customers, in a scene that was interpreted as an aspiration to win the votes of the poor and middle classes in the country.
Trump himself is the richest president in the country’s history, with a net worth estimated at about $5.6 billion, according to the Forbes list, while it reached nearly $8 billion weeks before the election due to the rise in the prices of his company, Truth Social.
After Trump appointed most of the heads of traditional departments in the Cabinet and enlisted the help of technology entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead the new proposed (Government Efficiency Commission), he is establishing the richest presidential administration in the history of the United States.
If the US Senate confirms Trump’s choices, he will easily break his record, which he set in his first government with the presence of one billionaire, namely Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who had a combined net worth of about two billion dollars, according to Business Insider.
Many potential members of a second Trump administration face criticism for lacking bureaucratic experience relevant to the departments they will oversee. Instead, they have thrived in the private sector and experienced entrepreneurial success.
List of billionaires
According to data from the Forbes Billionaires Index as of November 24, the new Trump government until that date includes the following list of billionaires:
- Donald Trump ($5.6 billion): His wealth is based on real estate including hotels and golf courses, as well as his stake in his social media group.
- Elon Musk ($349 billion): He will chair the government’s efficiency committee to improve public spending. He is the president of Tesla and the owner of the X platform, and he owns companies such as SpaceX, Starlink, and Neuralink.
- Linda McMahon ($2.5 billion): A co-founder of WWE and will lead the Ministry of Education.
- Howard Lutnick ($1.5 billion): Chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, he will lead the Department of Commerce and support imposing tariffs on imports from abroad to boost American products.
- Vivek Ramaswamy ($1.1 billion): A businessman and former presidential candidate, he will participate in reducing the size of the federal government and increasing efficiency.
- Doug Burgum ($1.1 billion): Governor of North Dakota, will oversee natural resources and federal lands as Secretary of the Interior.
- Scott Besant ($1.1 billion): Investment manager, Trump’s nominee for the Treasury Department and advising on economic and financial policies.
Numbers and paradoxes
The total value of the wealth of the billionaires chosen for the Trump administration is about $360 billion, including Musk and Ramaswamy, who work in advisory roles outside the Cabinet.
Excluding Musk and Ramaswamy, the wealth of Trump’s proposed cabinet, as of November 24, is estimated at about $10.7 billion.
In Trump’s first administration, the total wealth of the ministers members of his administration amounted to about $6.2 billion, while their wealth during the term of outgoing President Joe Biden amounted to about $118 million, and $2.8 billion in the second administration of former President Barack Obama.
