Wilbur Ross, the billionaire investor considered the “king of bankruptcy” for buying beaten-down companies with the potential to deliver profits, is President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for commerce secretary, a senior transition official said.
The official isn’t authorised to publicly discuss the matter and requested anonymity.
Reputed by Forbes to be worth nearly $3 billion, Mr. Ross would represent the interests of U.S. businesses domestically and abroad as the head at Commerce. His department would be among those tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s stated goal of protecting U.S. workers and challenging decades of globalization that largely benefited multinational corporations.
With a Florida home down the road from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat, the 78-year-old Mr. Ross played a role in crafting and selling the President-elect’s tax-cut and infrastructure plans. Ross has suggested that much of America is disgruntled because the economy has left middle-class workers behind and says Trump represents a shift to a “less politically correct direction.”
“Part of the reason why I’m supporting Trump is that I think we need a more radical, new approach to government at least in the U.S. from what we’ve had before,” Mr. Ross told CNBC in June, referring to Trump’s blunt tone and sweeping promises to reinvigorate economic growth.
Despite his embrace of populist rhetoric, Ross has enjoyed a patrician lifestyle. He frequently commutes between his offices in New York and home in Palm Beach, Florida, according to Haute Living magazine. He maintains an art collection worth more than $100 million that includes works by the Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte. A graduate of Yale University, he pledged $10 million to help build its management school.
School choice advocate is Trump pick for education secretary
Within minutes of being named Donald Trump’s choice for education secretary, Betsy DeVos pledged to oversee a “transformational change” in U.S. education, something the wealthy Republican donor has pursued in her home state of Michigan and beyond as an advocate for school choice.
“I am honoured to work with the president-elect on his vision to make American education great again,” DeVos, 58, tweeted after the announcement Wednesday afternoon. “The status quo in ed is not acceptable.”
Just as swiftly came the backlash from some conservatives who warned she had previously supported the Common Core education standards that Trump railed against during the campaign, and from teachers unions fiercely opposed to the kinds of reforms she supports.
“To clarify, I am not a supporter period,” she tweeted on Wednesday as questions circulated about her position on the Common Core learning standards adopted by many states to improve student readiness for college or a career.
On her website, Ms. DeVos said the higher standards supported by governors made sense at first but “got turned into a federalized boondoggle.”
Mr. Trump called her “a brilliant and passionate education advocate.”
“Under her leadership we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families,” the incoming president said.
