President-elect Donald Trump has assembled a Cabinet and advisory team valued at a staggering $10 billion — excluding the ballooning fortune of his outside adviser, Elon Musk.
Trump’s second-term Cabinet, which includes at least 11 billionaires, was found by a joint report between Axios and Americans for Tax Fairness to boast a combined wealth greater than the GDP of nations like Finland and New Zealand.
“It’s not hyperbole to call this a government of billionaires,” Axios reporter Zachary Basu wrote.
Among them: Scott Bessent at Treasury, Howard Lutnick at Commerce, Linda McMahon at Education, and Jared Isaacman at NASA. Additional high-profile appointments include Vivek Ramaswamy as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and tech investor David Sacks as White House AI and crypto czar.
The billionaire lineup doesn’t stop there. Trump has tapped financier Stephen Feinberg for the Pentagon’s second-in-command. Family connections remain central; Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, is set to be ambassador to France, and Massad Boulos, another Trump in-law, will advise on Middle East policy. Even Trump’s most generous donors, like Warren Stephens, are being rewarded, with the billionaire heading to the UK as ambassador.
Democrats argue such wealth will make the administration inherently self-serving, while Trump loyalists claim it represents the American Dream at its zenith. Still, the optics of rewarding donors and billionaires with key government roles could backfire.