00:00Today on Forbes, Inside the Richest Presidential Cabinet Ever.
00:06In October 2024, just a few weeks before the election,
00:10Donald Trump took a seat at a town hall outside Detroit.
00:14The billionaire to his right, transition chairman Howard Lutnick,
00:18leaned forward to explain the kinds of people Trump had in mind for his return to the White House.
00:24Lutnick said, quote,
00:25The best business leaders in the country, the best politicians want to serve.
00:30They will be loyal to him. They will have fidelity to him.
00:33They will follow his policies, and this will be the most extraordinary government you've ever seen.
00:39It is extraordinary indeed. Gone are the days of the generals willing to defy him.
00:45Now, Trump's most ardent supporters, from Wall Street to the studios of Fox News, fill the seats next to him.
00:53Even more notable is just how wealthy they are.
00:56The billionaire president has assembled the richest cabinet in U.S. history.
01:01Even without adding in Trump's own $5.5 billion net worth,
01:06Forbes estimates that his top advisors are worth $7.5 billion,
01:11more than doubling the $3.2 billion combined worth of Trump's 2019 cabinet.
01:17By contrast, Biden's cabinet of regular Joe's was barely worth $110 million combined in 2021.
01:26Most of the cabinet's staggering wealth comes from Lutnick, now Commerce Secretary,
01:32and Linda McMahon, the Education Secretary, both of whom are billionaires.
01:36Lutnick, Trump's top trade negotiator, has a net worth of $3.3 billion.
01:43He made his bones on Wall Street, taking over daily operations of Cantor Fitzgerald the year he turned 30.
01:50He entered the national consciousness on September 11, 2001,
01:54when the firm lost more than 600 employees, including Lutnick's brother, in the World Trade Center.
01:59Lutnick, who happened to be dropping his son off at kindergarten that day,
02:04built back Cantor and steered the firm, rooted in treasuries, toward real estate and cryptocurrencies.
02:11He made plenty of enemies along the way, while building himself a fortune.
02:15One former employee says, quote,
02:18The whole firm is about effing people. It's about squeezing people.
02:23Lutnick's two 20-something-year-old sons now help lead Cantor.
02:26Linda McMahon, Trump's Secretary of Education, has a net worth of $3.3 billion.
02:34McMahon and her now-estranged husband, Vince, bought his father's wrestling company in 1982
02:39and grew it into the global entertainment titan that World Wrestling Entertainment is today,
02:45with Linda serving as president or CEO from 1993 until 2009.
02:50Forbes estimates that they still own some 6.4 million shares in TKO Group,
02:55WWE's parent company, worth nearly $1.2 billion as of last week,
03:00and have amassed plenty of cash and other liquid investments as well.
03:05Also in Trump's cabinet are three men in their 60s,
03:08Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum,
03:12and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who each sit atop fortunes of at least $100 million.
03:18According to Forbes estimates, Besant's net worth is $600 million.
03:23Besant built a career on big-picture bets, inflation, currency valuations, and economic growth.
03:30He had much of his success working for GOP boogeyman George Soros,
03:34rising to the position of Chief Investment Officer at Soros Fund Management.
03:38However, Besant failed to generate consistent returns at his own hedge fund, KeySquare.
03:45Burgum, North Dakota's former governor, got about $100 million of Microsoft stock in 2001
03:51when the tech giant bought Great Plains Software, a business software company he led as CEO.
03:57Burgum's net worth is now more than $100 million.
04:01Wright, the Energy Secretary, made his fortune from a series of companies in the oil and gas industry,
04:07most notably Liberty Energy, a fracking firm he founded in 2011.
04:12Wright's net worth is currently $100 million.
04:16Then there is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
04:19who is largely shunned by his wealthy family,
04:22and a smattering of entrepreneurs and business people like Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Duremer,
04:27who co-founded an anesthesia practice in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, a doctor.
04:31The only career politician is Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
04:35one of 11 mere millionaires in the cabinet.
04:39Of course, no members of the cabinet are quite as wealthy as the man they serve,
04:43the only billionaire president in American history.
04:47For full coverage, and to see the net worth of each individual cabinet member,
04:51including those not mentioned here,
04:53check out Kyle Kahn Mullins' piece on Forbes.com.
04:57This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
05:00Thanks for tuning in.
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