Eight of 23 Cabinet members meet the wealth threshold
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen reported Monday that 57 Trump administration officials are worth at least $100 million each, with 17 serving as ambassadors and 40 in other senior executive-branch posts. The figure exceeds four times the combined count of $100M-plus appointees under the three previous presidencies.
The combined count of $100M-plus appointees under Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and George W. Bush falls short of the Trump-era total even when the three administrations are added together, Public Citizen said.
Public Citizen points to the Cabinet as evidence of the disparity. “Look no further than Trump’s Cabinet,” the report states, identifying eight of the 23 secretaries as worth at least $100 million. Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, both billionaires, are among them.
The Associated Press reported that the analysis frames wealth as perhaps second only to loyalty among the attributes Trump has prized in his second-term personnel decisions. That characterization runs through Public Citizen’s analysis of who the president has chosen to staff the executive branch.