Pa. billionaire Jeff Yass could end up in a Donald Trump White House: Report
Jeff Yass is being mentioned as as potential Treasury secretary after uniting with Donald Trump on the TikTok fight.
Jeffrey Yass’ name is coming up in discussions about whom former President Donald Trump would want in his cabinet if he wins the 2024 election.
Yass, a 65-year-old billionaire investor who lives in the Philly suburbs, is one of the 50 richest people in the country. The cofounder of the Bala Cynwyd-based trading and investment firm Susquehanna International Group, Yass is one of the biggest GOP donors in the country.
Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Trump has been meeting with potential cabinet picks for if he wins the election, though he hasn’t made any decisions. Yass is one of four people Trump has informally discussed as a potential U.S. Treasury secretary, according to Bloomberg.
Other names he’s floated for the role are billionaire John Paulson, former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Key Square Group LP founder Scott Bessent.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung denied that there have been conversations surrounding who would serve in a second Trump administration, Bloomberg reported.
Regardless of whether Trump wins or picks Yass for the post, the conversations signal the influence the local billionaire can have on a national scale.
For example, the relationship between Yass and Trump has recently entered the public view surrounding the TikTok debate.
The U.S. House passed a bill last week that would require TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the app to a company that isn’t based in China, or else the app would be banned in the United States. It’s unclear how the bill will do in the Senate, but President Joe Biden said he would sign it.
» READ MORE: A ban on TikTok would be a blow to local billionaire investor and GOP megadonor Jeff Yass
A ban wouldn’t fare well for Yass, whose Susquehanna firm owns a 15% stake — worth about $21 billion last year — in TikTok, according to the Wall Street Journal. Susquehanna was ByteDance’s earliest U.S. backer in 2012, putting in $3 million of the company’s initial $5 million investment round.
Trump made a speech earlier this month at a donor retreat for Club for Growth, a conservative super PAC pushing against a TikTok ban that is heavily funded by Yass.
In his speech at the retreat, Trump said Yass was one of two people who invited him to speak, and praised him as “fantastic,” according to Politico.
During a cocktail party at the March 1 retreat, the former president spoke with Yass about school choice — the megadonor’s biggest political interest which is also supported by Club for Growth — according to a person familiar with the matter. Trump said on CNBC this week that the two didn’t discuss TikTok.
But the former president came out against the TikTok ban this week, backtracking from his earlier positions on the app. Trump tried to ban TikTok as president in 2020.