Business

Abortion is a Business Issue

Published

3 years ago

May 4, 2022

Company America’s silence

After a Supreme Courtroom draft ruling confirmed that Roe v. Wade could also be overturned, lots of America’s company leaders reacted with silence. Abortion is a enterprise difficulty: Ladies make up greater than half of the work drive, and those that have been unable to get abortions have been much less more likely to be employed full time six months after denial of care, in line with a 2018 paper.

However abortion can be one of the divisive subjects in American politics, and the state of public opinion on the problem is advanced. Most People assist at the least some entry to abortion, and most assist restrictions that Roe v. Wade doesn’t allow. Firms selecting to supply new insurance policies to assist staff in search of abortions — or selecting to not — dangers dividing clients, staff and purchasers.

That will clarify why, to date, many firms stay muted. Though Apple, Amazon, Citigroup and Yelp are amongst these providing to cowl some prices for workers who must journey out of state for an abortion, different firms had no remark yesterday concerning the Supreme Courtroom draft opinion leak. They embrace: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Oracle, JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, Disney, Meta, Airbnb, ThirdLove, Patagonia and Kroger. The Chamber of Commerce declined to remark, and the Enterprise Roundtable stated it did “not have a place on this difficulty.”

Some firms, like Levi’s and OkCupid, and executives have spoken out. In a press release to DealBook, Levi’s stated that proscribing entry to abortion would have “far-reaching penalties for the American work drive, the U.S. economic system and our nation’s pursuit of gender and racial fairness.” The corporate added that the top of Roe would “jeopardize office features ladies have remodeled the previous 50 years, disproportionately affect ladies of colour and drive firms to implement completely different well being insurance policies for various places.”

(Sheryl Sandberg posted on Fb that “it is a scary day for ladies.”)

In sure states, massive firms are more and more discovering themselves at odds with Republican leaders. A number of of the 31 states which have launched abortion bans this yr have sought to draw firms with low tax charges. Final yr, Texas enacted a ban on most procedures after about six weeks of being pregnant. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed into regulation a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant. These states even have a observe document of pushing again in opposition to firms that take a political stand on points like native abortion legal guidelines. A Texas state legislator warned in March that he would search to stop Citigroup from underwriting municipal bonds within the state until it rescinded its coverage of overlaying staff’ journey bills for abortions.

Firms could begin treating reproductive well being as an worker profit to draw expertise. “We wish to have the ability to recruit and retain staff wherever they could be residing,” Yelp beforehand instructed DealBook. However that seek for expertise is difficult. Restrictive abortion legal guidelines have the most important results on low-wage employees, who can’t as simply afford to journey out of state for an abortion, lots of their employers, similar to at Walmart and Kroger, are headquartered in Republican-led states. “In the event that they’re dealing with sufficient of a labor scarcity that they assume it’ll matter by way of hiring folks on the charge that they need,” stated Amanda Shanor, an assistant professor of constitutional regulation on the Wharton Faculty, “then they could do one thing.”

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

The Federal Reserve is predicted to lift rates of interest right now. Most economists are predicting half a share level improve, which might be the primary time since 2000 that the central financial institution has raised rates of interest by that a lot in a single assembly. Some on Wall Avenue are questioning the Fed’s capability to curtail the current uptick in inflation with out sending the economic system right into a recession.

The Trump household enterprise pays $750,000 to settle swimsuit with Washington. The District of Columbia claimed that the Trump Worldwide Resort had accepted extreme funds from the previous president’s inauguration committee, a nonprofit, partly to host a non-public occasion for his youngsters.

The S.E.C. is investigating the Chinese language ride-hailing big DiDi. The corporate stated the company was trying into its $4.4 billion I.P.O. within the U.S. final yr however didn’t present particulars. The scrutiny comes as American regulators take into account delisting Chinese language companies publicly traded within the U.S. for failure to share monetary audits.

Starbucks plans $1 billion in wage will increase and investments in its shops. Nevertheless, the wage improve received’t apply to shops the place staff have unionized, the corporate stated, explaining that it might want to negotiate offers with the unions concerned in these shops. The initiative was introduced as labor organizers have received preliminary votes at greater than 50 shops, together with a number of this week. Some labor attorneys argued the transfer amounted to a stress tactic that could be unlawful.

Biogen distances itself from a high-profile Alzheimer’s drug after a disastrous launch. The corporate is in search of a brand new chief government and can successfully hand over on advertising Aduhelm, which comes with unproven advantages and severe security dangers.

Silicon Valley takes out its ax

After a couple of years of wholesome hiring, Silicon Valley could be set for a bout of belt tightening. Up to now two months, numerous start-ups, together with Higher.com, Gopuff, Mix and Robinhood, injected doubt and uncertainty into what seems to be a robust job market.

Tech firms are feeling the squeeze from Wall Avenue. Because the inventory market has fallen this yr — and the standard sources of funding, like I.P.O.s, and nontraditional sources of funding, like SPACs, have dried up — start-ups are starting to rethink how a lot cash funders will give them earlier than they’ve to show a revenue. That has made numerous Silicon Valley start-ups extra price aware than typical.

No wave … but. Tech business recruiters and buyers inform DealBook that whereas hiring has been paused and job cuts are nonetheless uncommon, extra layoffs will be anticipated. “Layoffs are simply beginning,” stated Gregory Becker, the chief government of Silicon Valley Financial institution. “However my view is that you’re going to see extra of that.”

Private and non-private buyers are “spooked,” stated Stephen Clements, the chief inventive director of Y Media Labs, who has labored in Silicon Valley for about 18 years. “And the cash is subsequently drying up.” Eugene Lupario, president of SVS Group, a staffing agency with a number of places of work within the Bay Space, stated a few of his purchasers had been negatively affected by provide chain disruptions. Even when provide chain points don’t affect the business immediately, Lupario stated the disruptions total had modified buyers’ conduct and urge for food for danger.

Large hikes in compensation aren’t “sustainable.” Due to expertise shortages, wages are rising at a breakneck tempo within the tech business, and employees have elevated bargaining energy. However “it’s not sustainable,” Lupario tells DealBook, and employers “are hitting their limits.”

Nonetheless, some pockets of the tech business proceed to rent. The segments that seem most proof against layoffs, and even hiring freezes, are synthetic intelligence, machine studying, software program safety and health-care-focused tech start-ups.

“Allow us to be clear: It is not going to be straightforward. Some member states are strongly depending on Russian oil. However we merely need to work on it.”

—Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Fee, this morning on the bloc’s new plan to ban Russian oil imports.

Board variety could also be shedding momentum

Within the weeks and months after the homicide of George Floyd in 2020, requires racial justice pushed many firms within the U.S. to decide to redoubling their efforts on racial fairness. However practically two years later, the momentum for extra variety on the highest ranges of company America seems to be fading, in line with an annual report on the board composition of enormous firms launched this morning by the chief search agency Heidrick & Struggles.

Black folks made up simply 15 p.c of newly named administrators of Fortune 500 firms within the second half of final yr. That was down from 26 p.c for the entire yr, and 28 p.c in 2020. The variety of Hispanic board appointees rose in 2021 to six p.c from 4 p.c the yr earlier than.

There was some excellent news on variety efforts. Ladies made up 45 p.c of all board appointments final yr, up from 41 p.c the yr earlier than. Amongst all administrators, new and outdated, the variety of feminine board members of Fortune 500 firms rose to 29 p.c final yr, up from 19 p.c in 2015. “We anticipate that extra progress will probably be made on variety, fairness and inclusion when numerous administrators maintain extra influential board positions,” Lyndon Taylor, a companion on the search agency, stated in a press release. “However it will require that boards tackle a complete perspective on variety.”

THE SPEED READ

Offers

Roku and Apollo World Administration are reportedly teaming as much as bid on a minority stake of the Lions Gate Leisure community Starz. (WSJ)
Aston Martin will substitute its chief government and overhaul its administration group as the corporate focuses on electrical automobiles. (FT)
The New York Occasions’s buy of The Athletic helped the corporate get nearer to its new subscriber objective, however the sports activities website misplaced $6.8 million over two months, consuming into total income. (NYT)

Russian-Ukraine warfare

Almost 130 ladies, youngsters and older folks trapped in a metal plant beneath siege in Mariupol have been evacuated safely, a uncommon however restricted victory for diplomacy within the Russia-Ukraine battle. (NYT)
The State Division says the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner’s detainment in Russia since February on drug prices is “wrongful.” (NYT)
The C.I.A. publishes directions on how Russians can secretly share secrets and techniques with the spy company. (WaPo)
Firms are hiring attorneys to organize to problem Russian claims over seized planes. (Telegraph)

Coverage

The C.D.C. reportedly purchased entry to telephone location knowledge to trace whether or not People adhered to Covid lockdown guidelines. (Vice)
The C.I.A. director, William Burns, made a secret go to to Saudi Arabia final month to satisfy with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (WSJ)
Washington State reaches a $518 million settlement with three drug distributors charged with fueling the state’s opioid epidemic. (Reuters)

Better of the remainder

The within story of Politico’s Roe v. Wade scoop. (NYT)
Uber reported sturdy development in its ride-hailing and supply companies right now and stated it was persevering with to bounce again from a pandemic droop. (NYT)
The Gates Basis chief government, Mark Suzman, says there may be “zero expectation” that Melinda Gates will step down after her divorce with Invoice Gates. (STAT Information)
“I’m a Trend Editor, and I Store on the Dump” (NYT Journal)
Firm logos you may see from house. (Kottke)

We’d like your suggestions! Please e-mail ideas and strategies to dealbook@nytimes.com.

Business

4 Takeaways From the Arguments Before the Supreme Court in the TikTok Case

Published

2 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

4 Takeaways From the Arguments Before the Supreme Court in the TikTok Case

The Supreme Court on Friday grappled over a law that could determine the fate of TikTok, an enormously popular social media platform that has about 170 million users.

Congress enacted the law out of concern that the app, whose owner is based in China, is susceptible to the influence of the Chinese government and posed a national risk. The measure would effectively ban TikTok from operating in the United States unless its owner, ByteDance, sells it by Jan. 19.

Here are some key takeaways:

The court appeared likely to uphold the law.

While the justices across the ideological spectrum asked tough questions of both sides, the overall tone and thrust appeared to suggest greater skepticism toward the arguments by lawyers for TikTok and its users that the First Amendment barred Congress from enacting the law.

The questioning opened with two conservative members of the court, Justice Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., suggesting that it was not TikTok, an American company, but its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, that was directly affected by the law.

Another conservative, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, focused on the risk that the Chinese government could use information TikTok is gathering on tens of millions of American teenagers and twentysomethings to eventually “develop spies, turn people, blackmail people” when they grow older and go to work for national security agencies or the military.

Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, asked why TikTok could not just create or buy another algorithm rather than using ByteDance’s.

And another liberal, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said she believed the law was less about speech than about association. She suggested that barring TikTok from associating with a Chinese company was akin to barring Americans from associating with foreign terrorist groups for national security reasons. (The Supreme Court has upheld that as constitutional.)

Still, several justices were skeptical about a major part of the government’s justification for the law: the risk that China might “covertly” make TikTok manipulate the content shown to Americans or collect user data to achieve its geopolitical aims.

Both Justice Kagan and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a conservative, stressed that everybody now knows that China is behind TikTok. They appeared interested in whether the government’s interest in preventing “covert” leveraging of the platform by a foreign adversary could be achieved in a less heavy-handed manner, like appending a label warning users of that risk.

Lawyers for TikTok and for its users argued that the law is unconstitutional.

Two lawyers argued that the law violates the First Amendment: Noel Francisco, representing both TikTok and ByteDance, and Jeffrey Fisher, representing TikTok users. Both suggested that concerns about potential manipulation by the Chinese government of the information American users see on the platform were insufficient to justify the law.

Mr. Francisco contended that the government in a free country “has no valid interest in preventing foreign propaganda” and cannot constitutionally try to keep Americans from being “persuaded by Chinese misinformation.” That is targeting the content of speech, which the First Amendment does not permit, he said.

Mr. Fisher asserted that fears that China might use its control over the platform to promote posts sowing doubts about democracy or pushing pro-China and anti-American views were a weaker justification for interfering in free speech than concerns about foreign terrorism.

“The government just doesn’t get to say ‘national security’ and the case is over,” Mr. Fisher said, adding, “It’s not enough to say ‘national security’ — you have to say ‘what is the real harm?’”

The Biden administration defended Congress’s right to enact the law.

The solicitor general, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, argued that Congress had lawful authority to enact the statute and that it did not violate the First Amendment. She said it was important to recognize that the law leaves speech on TikTok unrestricted once the platform is freed from foreign control.

“All of the same speech that’s happening on TikTok could happen post-divestiture,” she said. “The act doesn’t regulate that at all. So it’s not saying you can’t have pro-China speech, you can’t have anti-American speech. It’s not regulating the algorithm.”

She added: “TikTok, if it were able to do so, could use precisely the same algorithm to display the same content by the same users. All the act is doing is trying to surgically remove the ability of a foreign adversary nation to get our data and to be able to exercise control over the platform.”

The court appears unlikely to wait for Trump.

President-elect Donald J. Trump has asked the Supreme Court to issue an injunction delaying the law from taking effect until after he assumes office on Jan. 20.

Mr. Trump once shared the view that Chinese control of TikTok was an intolerable national security risk, but reversed course around the time he met with a billionaire Republican donor with a stake in its parent company.

If the court does uphold the law, TikTok would effectively be banned in the United States on Jan. 19, Mr. Francisco said. He reiterated a request that the court temporarily pause the law from taking effect to push back that deadline, saying it would “simply buy everybody a little breathing space.” It might be a “different world” for TikTok after Jan. 20, he added.

But there was scant focus by the justices on that idea, suggesting that they did not take it seriously. Mr. Trump’s brief requesting that the court punt the issue past the end of President Biden’s term so he could handle it — signed by his pick to be the next solicitor general, D. John Sauer — was long on rhetoric extolling Mr. Trump, but short on substance.

Business

'We will not be closing.' Amid the fires, employers and employees walk a fine line between work and safety

Published

3 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

'We will not be closing.' Amid the fires, employers and employees walk a fine line between work and safety

When Brigitte Tran arrived Wednesday morning at the Rodeo Drive boutique where she works as a sales associate, she was on edge.

Smoke from multiple wildfires raging across Los Angeles County billowed overhead. The luxury shopping corridor usually bustling with tourists appeared a ghost town.

Tran’s co-worker texted their boss to let her know neighboring stores had closed, and described the acrid smoke in the air. But the woman, at home in Orange County, did not seem to grasp their concerns. “We will not be closing unless the mall instructs us to close,” she replied.

Tran, who, fearing professional repercussions, asked that her place of work not be named, grew more anxious as the hours ticked by. Around 3 p.m., she and the two other employees working that day mutinied. They packed up, told the security guard to head home, and locked the doors a few hours before closing time.

As the wildfires have raged across Los Angeles County, choking the air, closing schools and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate, employers and employees alike have had to manage a difficult balancing act between work and well being. Some employers responded swiftly to the crisis, shutting down offices and shifting to remote work, providing outdoor workers with masks and other protective equipment, and offering support for employees forced to evacuate. Others have been less adept, clumsy in their communications or wholly unmoved by worker concerns — sparking anger among their ranks as a result.

The fires have underscored the need for companies to have a clear plan in place to respond to emergencies, said Jonathan Porter, a meteorologist at private weather forecaster AccuWeather. The obligation, he said, goes beyond monitoring whether an office is in an evacuation zone. For example, as the current devastation unfolds, businesses should be aware of the “copious amounts of dangerous smoke that’s wafting into the air” and be prepared to provide outdoor workers with quality respirators or move them away from polluted air.

Some employers gave employees flexibility. Snap, the Santa Monica-based creator of the photo messaging app Snapchat, for example, kept its offices open on Wednesday but encouraged employees to work remotely, said a company spokesperson.

Others changed course after fielding criticism.

An announcement by UCLA that the campus would remain open for classes and regular operations on Wednesday drew anger from some instructors and students on social media.

Victor Narro, project director for the UCLA Labor Center and a lecturer on campus, said in a post on X he would ignore UCLA’s mandate and hold an optional class online.

“Students have been up all night panicked about sleeping through evacuation orders, winds still high, branches falling all over Westwood, power outages across city, & our new chancellor (on his 2nd day) thought this should be his first bold call…” wrote Nour Joudah, an assistant professor in UCLA’s Asian American Studies Department, in another X post.

That evening, UCLA changed course as conditions worsened, announcing it would close campus.

On Saturday, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk released a statement saying classes would be held remotely for at least another week and campus operations would be curtailed. “We ask for continued flexibility and understanding as we all work through these difficult times,” Frenk wrote.

But for many workers, the chaos of the last few dayshas left them feeling like they are fending for themselves.

Tim Hernandez, a driver with Amazon Flex, an on-demand Uber-like program in which people use their own cars to deliver packages, was assigned a route Tuesday along the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu, which was rife with closures.

When he questioned whether making the delivery was safe, he said dispatchers at a Amazon facility in Camarillo brushed him off, leaving him to choose between concerns for his safety and worries that his rating in the Flex app would be hurt if he refused to go. He decided to try to make the deliveries, battling gusts of wind that knocked him over at one point. He lost cell signal, however, and was forced to return to the warehouse without completing the vast majority.

And when he arrived for his shift Tuesday, Alfred Muñoz, 43, an Amazon delivery driver who works out of a warehouse in the City of Industry, said he was handed an N95 mask but given little other instruction.

“It was just kind of business as usual,” Muñoz said.

High package counts and the number of stops on his assigned routes this week have made work even more difficult. On Tuesday, with wind gusts whipping debris around making it difficult to see, he had about 180 stops and 290 packages to deliver. On Thursday, the air thick with smoke and ash, he had more than 300 packages.

He woke up Thursday morning with a bloody nose and a sooty black crust in the corners of his eyes.

In response to a request for comment, Montana MacLachlan, an Amazon spokesperson, said the company was “closely monitoring the wildfires across Southern California and adjusting our operations to keep our employees and those delivering for us safe.”

“If a driver arrives at a delivery location and the conditions are not safe to make a delivery, they are not expected to do so and the driver’s performance will not be impacted,” she said.

At the Brentwood location of popular Italian eatery Jon & Vinny’s, staff complained of headaches and sore throats in a text message group chat. An employee, who asked not to be named fearing retaliation at work, said that on Tuesday, staff huddled around an iPad with a fire map pulled up to keep an eye on the expanding evacuation zone. From the front of the restaurant, they could see the glow of the Palisades fire.

The employee said they were frustrated management kept the restaurant open when the perimeter of the mandatory evacuation zone was just two blocks away. On Wednesday, every server scheduled to work called in to say they were not coming, the employee said.

A spokesperson for Joint Venture Restaurant Group, which owns Jon & Vinny’s, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During natural disasters and extreme weather, employers’ choices can sometimes mean life or death, said David Michaels, a professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health and a former assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

He pointed to recent floods from Hurricane Helene that killed several workers at a plastics manufacturer. The tragedy has drawn scrutiny from state investigators, and a wrongful death lawsuit accuses the company of requiring employees to stay on site amid flooding after they requested permission to leave.

“It’s incumbent on employers to ensure the safety of their workers,” Michaels said. “The safety of their employees must take precedence over business concerns.”

Yasha Timenovich, 48, a driver for rideshare app Lyft and food delivery platform DoorDash, is more worried about declining earnings than on-the-job safety. With many restaurants and other businesses closed and would-be customers fleeing the city, he said that rides and deliveries have been slow. Traffic patterns have been strange and unpredictable with families piling into vehicles to flee fires.

Timenovich, who faced an order to evacuate his Hollywood apartment with his fiance and 6-year-old daughter Wednesday night, said he planned to stay with relatives for a few days in San Luis Obispo, where he hopes business will be better.

“I’m going to get out of here because it’s too crazy with these fires,” Timenovich said.

Business

Scott Bessent, Trump’s Billionaire Treasury Pick, Will Shed Assets to Avoid Conflicts

Published

10 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

Scott Bessent, Trump’s Billionaire Treasury Pick, Will Shed Assets to Avoid Conflicts

Scott Bessent, the billionaire hedge fund manager whom President-elect Donald J. Trump picked to be his Treasury secretary, plans to divest from dozens of funds, trusts and investments in preparation to become the nation’s top economic policymaker.

Those plans were released on Saturday along with the publication of an ethics agreement and financial disclosures that Mr. Bessent submitted ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing next Thursday.

The documents show the extent of the wealth of Mr. Bessent, whose assets and investments appear to be worth in excess of $700 million. Mr. Bessent was formerly the top investor for the billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros and has been a major Republican donor and adviser to Mr. Trump.

If confirmed as Treasury secretary, Mr. Bessent, 62, will steer Mr. Trump’s economic agenda of cutting taxes, rolling back regulations and imposing tariffs as he seeks to renegotiate trade deals. He will also play a central role in the Trump administration’s expected embrace of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Although Mr. Trump won the election by appealing to working-class voters who have been dogged by high prices, he has turned to wealthy Wall Street investors such as Mr. Bessent and Howard Lutnick, a billionaire banker whom he tapped to be commerce secretary, to lead his economic team. Linda McMahon, another billionaire, has been picked as education secretary, and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is leading an unofficial agency known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

In a letter to the Treasury Department’s ethics office, Mr. Bessent outlined the steps he would take to “avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest in the event that I am confirmed for the position of secretary of the Department of Treasury.”

Mr. Bessent said he would shutter Key Square Capital Management, the investment firm that he founded, and resign from his Bessent-Freeman Family Foundation and from Rockefeller University, where he has been chairman of the investment committee.

The financial disclosure form, which provides ranges for the value of his assets, reveals that Mr. Bessent owns as much as $25 million of farmland in North Dakota, which earns an income from soybean and corn production. He also owns a property in the Bahamas that is worth as much as $25 million. Last November, Mr. Bessent put his historic pink mansion in Charleston, S.C., on the market for $22.5 million.

Mr. Bessent is selling several investments that could pose potential conflicts of interest including a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund; an account that trades the renminbi, China’s currency; and his stake in All Seasons, a conservative publisher. He also has a margin loan, or line of credit, with Goldman Sachs of more than $50 million.

As an investor, Mr. Bessent has long wagered on the rising strength of the dollar and has betted against, or “shorted,” the renminbi, according to a person familiar with Mr. Bessent’s strategy who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss his portfolio. Mr. Bessent gained notoriety in the 1990s by betting against the British pound and earning his firm, Soros Fund Management, $1 billion. He also made a high-profile bet against the Japanese yen.

Mr. Bessent, who will be overseeing the U.S. Treasury market, holds over $100 million in Treasury bills.

Cabinet officials are required to divest certain holdings and investments to avoid the potential for conflicts of interest. Although this can be an onerous process, it has some potential tax benefits.

The tax code contains a provision that allows securities to be sold and the capital gains tax on such sales deferred if the full proceeds are used to buy Treasury securities and certain money-market funds. The tax continues to be deferred until the securities or money-market funds are sold.

Even while adhering to the ethics guidelines, questions about conflicts of interest can still emerge.

Mr. Trump’s Treasury secretary during his first term, Steven Mnuchin, divested from his Hollywood film production company after joining the administration. However, as he was negotiating a trade deal in 2018 with China — an important market for the U.S. film industry — ethics watchdogs raised questions about whether Mr. Mnuchin had conflicts because he had sold his interest in the company to his wife.

Mr. Bessent was chosen for the Treasury after an internal tussle among Mr. Trump’s aides over the job. Mr. Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s transition team co-chair and the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, made a late pitch to secure the Treasury secretary role for himself before Mr. Trump picked him to be Commerce secretary.

During that fight, which spilled into view, critics of Mr. Bessent circulated documents disparaging his performance as a hedge fund manager.

Mr. Bessent’s most recent hedge fund, Key Square Capital, launched to much fanfare in 2016, garnering $4.5 billion in investor money, including $2 billion from Mr. Soros, but manages much less now. A fund he ran in the early 2000s had a similarly unremarkable performance.