Meet The American Oligarchy: Trump's Ultra-Rich Cabinet and Advisors

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Let’s just get it out of the way upfront: Donald Trump is assembling a government of billionaires, the likes of which the United States has never seen. The president-elect has tapped five reported billionaires for cabinet posts: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for interior secretary, hedge funder Scott Bessent for treasury secretary, Cantor Fitzgerald chief Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary, wrestling magnate Linda McMahon for education secretary (I know, just roll with it), and former Sen. Kelly Loeffler—wife of New York Stock Exchange Chairman Jeffrey Sprecher—for small business administrator.

But those appointments are almost normal compared to the billionaires Trump’s installing everywhere else. After Elon Musk spent a quarter-billion dollars to get him elected—$40.25 billion, if you count the in-kind acquisition of Twitter—Trump made the world’s richest man co-chair (with maybe-billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy) of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. There, one of the government’s largest contractors will be tasked with trimming about $2 trillion from the federal budget. Or maybe they’ll just harass civil servants until they quit; it’s not really clear what DOGE will be, beyond a dead joke about an internet meme from 2013.

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