Rowan and Warsh shake up Treasury race
Few of the unfilled positions in Donald Trump’s cabinet are as important as Treasury secretary. But the question of who will fill the role is only getting cloudier.
Allies of two candidates, Howard Lutnick, the transition co-chair, and Scott Bessent, a top economic adviser, publicly stumped for them this weekend. But The Times reports that the president-elect himself wants somebody “big” for the role and is now considering Marc Rowan, the C.E.O. of Apollo Global Management, and Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor.
Elon Musk, Dan Loeb and others are weighing in. Musk threw his support behind Lutnick over the weekend, calling Bessent “business as usual,” an especially cutting criticism in the Trump camp. That said, The Times reports that Trump has privately griped about Lutnick hanging around too much and potentially manipulating the transition process for his own benefit.
Loeb backed Bessent, arguing that choosing Lutnick might rattle investors, including in the $28 trillion market for Treasury bonds and notes. That said, Bessent is also being floated for positions such as chair of the White House’s National Economic Council.
Trump has told associates that he is impressed by Rowan, The Times reports. The president-elect tends to value wealth and status on Wall Street, and Rowan, a co-founder of Apollo who helped turn the firm into a $733 billion investment giant, has plenty of both.
Rowan would be likely to reassure many on Wall Street, particularly given how unorthodox some of the other cabinet choices have been. But it’s unclear whether he would want to take such a public role, especially given his current work at Apollo. (How hard it would be to extricate Rowan from any “key man” provisions in the firm’s funds is another question.)
Trump has a history with Warsh, having considered him as a potential Fed chair in 2017, only to choose Jay Powell instead, a choice he later publicly regretted. The TV-minded Trump considers Warsh smart and handsome, The Times reports.
Warsh is also being mentioned as a potential successor to Powell, whose term expires in 2026.
Whoever gets the nod will have to deal with Trump’s insistence on new tariffs, a key campaign pledge. Among Lutnick’s private criticisms of Bessent, according to reports, is that his rival hasn’t expressed enough enthusiasm for them.
Yet The Times reports that Trump is wary of his choice upsetting markets. That’s why Bob Lighthizer, Trump’s first-term trade chief, is probably out of the running.
Where things stand: Trump is expected to invite contenders for the role, including Rowan and Warsh, to Mar-a-Lago for interviews this week, according to The Times.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
President Biden authorizes Ukraine to strike Russia with long-range U.S. missiles. The decision, which represents a reversal in American policy, came in response to Russia’s move to deploy North Korean troops in the war and President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to limit support for Kyiv. The missiles are expected to be used to defend Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region of western Russia. Moscow said the decision was a significant escalation and a step toward a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Spirit Airlines files for bankruptcy. The low-cost airline hopes that it can buy enough time to continue operating through the first quarter, as it looks to restructure its debts with bondholders and raise additional funds. Spirit has struggled for years with deepening losses, a failed sale with JetBlue and shifting consumer habits after the pandemic.
Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly settles its breach of contract lawsuit with the N.B.A. The media giant lost its hold on lucrative game broadcasts but has reached a deal with the league that will allow it to develop new N.B.A.-themed content in the U.S. and abroad for a decade, The Wall Street Journal reports. Warner Bros. Discovery sued the league in June after losing out in the bidding for an $80 billion, 11-year broadcast deal.
A “warrior” to shake up the F.C.C.
Many major tech C.E.O.s sent Donald Trump effusive congratulatory notes on his victory this month, seemingly in hopes of persuading the president-elect from going too hard on their companies.
But Trump’s latest pick to lead a major regulator, Brendan Carr as chair of the Federal Communications Commission, suggests that the incoming administration isn’t going to go easy on Silicon Valley.
“Carr is a warrior for free speech,” Trump said of his pick to lead the F.C.C. Since his appointment as one of the agency’s Republican commissioners in 2017, Carr has supported deregulatory moves including the rollback of net-neutrality initiatives.
But he has also become a harsh critic of tech giants and taken aim at broadcasters, whom Trump has threatened to strip of their licensing for perceived unfair coverage of him. (Carr suggested that NBC be punished for having Vice President Kamala Harris appear on “Saturday Night Live” during the campaign and not giving Trump the same opportunity.)
Carr has outlined plans to expand the agency’s authority, especially when it comes to regulating the likes of Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have taken the lead in policing those tech giants, but Carr has accused the companies of blocking conservative content. “The censorship cartel must be dismantled,” Carr wrote on X last night.
Among the other ideas proposed by Carr, who wrote the F.C.C. chapter in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposals for a second Trump term:
Eliminating the legal protections that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives to tech companies from liability for user posts on their platforms.
Loosening rules that limit how many radio or TV stations a company can own in a single market.
The pick is another win for Elon Musk. Carr, who has focused on expanding broadband access in the U.S., has been a big backer of Starlink, the tech mogul’s satellite internet provider. Now he could be put in charge of the agency that controls orbital access by space communications companies in the U.S.
Carr also criticized the F.C.C.’s decision in 2022 to revoke an $885 million grant to Starlink to expand rural broadband access. “It amounted to nothing more than regulatory lawfare against one of the left’s top targets: Mr. Musk,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last month.
Some in the media are sounding the alarm. Nilay Patel, the editor in chief of The Verge, told the Status media newsletter that the combination of Trump, Carr and Musk was a threat to the First Amendment.
”If you’re a media executive or editorial leader and you haven’t met with your legal team to understand the current landscape of First Amendment threats, let alone the ones to come, you’re already behind,” he said.
Worth noting: Unlike many of Trump’s other senior picks who must be confirmed by the Senate, Carr could take office as soon as Trump is inaugurated.
Tesla soars on bets self-driving cars get a green light
Investors are already betting on the potential winners and losers of Donald Trump’s economic policies. Look no further than the divergent fortunes of Elon Musk’s Tesla and Big Pharma.
Tariffs and tax cuts have long been a priority of the president-elect. Now, details are emerging about how the Republican’s transition team plans to disrupt swathes of the business world. It involves rolling back key planks of Bidenomics by targeting subsidies for electric vehicles and health insurance, slashing red tape, and overhauling public health policy.
Tesla shares are soaring in premarket trading on Monday. The boost comes after Bloomberg reported that Trump’s team plans to create a framework for self-driving cars that could speed up commercialization.
Musk has called autonomous transport the future of driving, and such a change would help Tesla. He has said repeatedly that the company is on the cusp of introducing the technology. Investors have bought into this vision, driving up the share price even as significant regulatory obstacles remain.
Trump has vowed to end Biden-era subsidies that make electric vehicles more affordable. It’s a tax break that Musk seems content to see vanish, betting that it will hurt competitors more than Tesla in the long term.
On the flip side are food and pharma. Shares of vaccine makers, including Pfizer and Moderna, sold off sharply last week after Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy, whose confirmation prospects are uncertain, has crusaded against food additives, pesticides and processed food to promote nutrition and fight chronic disease. (That said, fast food seems to be a staple on Trump’s plane.)
Also weighing on the sector: whether a Republican-controlled Congress would pull support next year for a planned expansion of Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies, which have been extremely popular with lower-income families.
In other news: Tim Cook, Apple’s C.E.O., may have a plan to minimize the effect of Trump tariffs on the iPhone maker’s business. And Speaker Mike Johnson wants Congress to pass Trump’s call to abolish taxes on tips, but warned “we’ve got to do the math.”
The week ahead
Can Nvidia beat Wall Street estimates and ignite another market rally? That question, and more, will be front and center. Here’s what to watch.
Monday: The Group of 20 summit meeting will kick off in Brazil with climate finance atop the agenda. Ahead of the event, President Biden visited the Amazon to call for more financing for rainforest protection and promote conservation — issues that could be sidelined in a Trump presidency.
Tuesday: Walmart and Lowe’s are set to report results, offering a glimpse into consumer spending.
Wednesday: It’s the big market event: earnings from Nvidia, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. Look for tough questions from analysts about demand for its chips, which power A.I. systems.
Friday: The COP29 climate conference concludes. Negotiations over a global climate finance deal may be sputtering, but there has been progress on a fund to help poor countries respond to climate-related natural disasters.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
The valuation of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has reportedly soared to roughly $300 billion as investors hope President-elect Donald Trump won’t ban the video app. (WSJ)
How Santander’s efforts to expand on Wall Street, including through a hiring spree of former Credit Suisse bankers, are beginning to pay off. (Bloomberg)
Politics and policy
Ann Selzer, the longtime and trusted pollster whose miss in Iowa just before the election caused a shock, is getting out of the business of predicting races. (NYT)
A failed U.S. border policy has helped spur an employment boom for some buzzy social media brands, including Alo Yoga. (NYT)
Best of the rest
Shen Yun’s dance company has turned out a generation of stars. Now it’s being investigated by New York state regulators over its treatment of children and teenagers. (NYT)
“Their Lives Were Bound by a Fraud Case; Their Fates by a Sinking Yacht” (NYT)
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The post The Race to Lead Trump’s Treasury Dept. Is Becoming a Cliffhanger appeared first on New York Times.
