By Fredreka Schouten, CNN

(CNN) — Wealthy hedge fund executive Scott Bessent – whose confirmation hearing for treasury secretary is slated for Thursday – has hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and owns property from North Dakota to the Bahamas.

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon, billionaire Steve Feinberg, is co-founder of a private equity firm that has owned companies with federal defense contracts. His pick for energy secretary, meanwhile, oversees a fracking-services company.

Trump is returning to the White House after making appeals to working-class voters in last year’s election, but he has assembled one of the wealthiest administrations in history – turning to nearly a dozen people worth at least $1 billion on their own or combined with their spouses’ assets – to oversee the nation’s policies and represent the US overseas as ambassadors.

This class of uber-rich officials has begun the process of detailing their vast wealth for public disclosure and developing plans with government ethics officers to unwind holdings that could pose conflicts of interest. In some cases, federal agencies have strained to complete the necessary paperwork ahead of confirmation hearings – with vetting slowed, for instance, by the incoming administration waiting a month after the election to sign an agreement paving the way for FBI background checks.

Some Senate confirmation hearings originally scheduled for earlier this week have been delayed because of the paperwork holdups, including one for former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to run the Interior Department, whose wealth is traced to a software company he founded and sold to Microsoft more than two decades ago. His hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

This week, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, New Mexico’s Martin Heinrich, said late-arriving paperwork had left lawmakers on the panel with less than 24 hours to review the financial disclosures of another Trump pick, Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright, tapped to head the Department of Energy.

Heinrich said he was “disappointed” that the GOP-led committee still proceeded Wednesday with Wright’s confirmation hearing. At the hearing, Wright said he has agreed to “take all the appropriate action” to avoid conflicts with his new job.

But the roles Trump’s picks occupied before entering the federal government are drawing intense scrutiny from ethics watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill alike.

“These are people who have never served in a full-time role in the US government,” Jeff Hauser – executive director of the Revolving Door Project, which monitors executive branch appointments – said of several Trump choices. “They have no experience thinking about the broader public interest as a priority.”

Trump transition officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN.

Incoming officials with more modest portfolios also have seen delays.

A hearing for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Trump’s pick to oversee the Department of Homeland Security, was pushed back this week over an FBI vetting delay, CNN has reported. It’s now slated for Friday.

(Ethics paperwork made public this week shows Noem supplemented her roughly $241,000 salary as governor with a nearly $140,000 advance for her book that generated headlines over her description of shooting and killing a dog she owned.)

Questions about DOGE

Some of the biggest questions swirl around whether the wealthiest Trump ally of them all, multi-billionaire Elon Musk, will be subject to the laws that require people who serve in government to avoid self-dealing. Along with wealthy former entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, he’s been tapped to lead a so-called Department of Government Efficiency aimed at cutting government waste.

Musk, the chief executive of electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX and owner of the social media platform X, plowed more than $260 million into electing Trump and has emerged as a key member of Trump’s inner circle during the Republican’s transition to a second term.

He’s slated to join Trump on the dais at Monday’s inauguration, alongside other tech billionaires.

“If you are an autoworker in Detroit and someone who owns a competitor in the manufacturing sector has the president’s ear … that might raise pretty significant concerns about your industry and your job,” said Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

DOGE has begun recruiting employees, including software engineers, by encouraging them to apply via direct messages on X.

Sherman said it’s “highly problematic” that just days before Trump enters the White House, the public has little concrete information about how DOGE will operate. “I don’t think anybody knows what they are going to be, how they are going to be organized, who is paying them and whether this is going to be a shadow government or an actual government entity,” he said.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren last month raised concerns about Musk’s role as a close Trump adviser in a letter to the incoming president, pointing to federal contracts held by Tesla and SpaceX and the web of federal laws and regulations on workplace safety and environmental protections that intersect with Musk’s business interests.

Musk and a DOGE spokesperson did not respond to CNN’s inquiries.

Shedding assets

Federal law requires Cabinet-level and other high-ranking incoming employees to submit financial disclosure reports that detail their assets and income earned in the previous year. That information is used by the agencies where they will work and the Office of Government Ethics to negotiate ethics agreements to avoid conflicts between their government duties and their private financial interests.

Bessent, Trump’s pick to oversee economic policy as treasury secretary, pledged to divest from his Key Square hedge fund within 90 days – along with shedding an array of investments, including his stake in the All Seasons Press, a conservative publisher, and holdings in individual companies, such as Verizon and Archer Daniels Midland.

In addition to Bessent, Burgum and Wright, other wealthy individuals slated for key roles in the administration include Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald chief that Trump has chosen to oversee the Commerce Department; wrestling magnate Linda McMahon as education secretary; and Jared Isaacman, the founder of online payment company Shift4, to oversee NASA.

Isaacman is a close Musk collaborator and has taken spaceflights with SpaceX.

Feinberg, meanwhile, is the co-CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, which has a history of interests with defense contracts.

Billionaire president

Neither the president nor vice president is subject to the federal law aimed at preventing government officials from financially benefitting from their jobs. Late last week, the Trump Organization said it was voluntarily taking steps to separate Trump’s presidency from his real estate and licensing empire.

The plan includes a commitment that Trump will not have a role in managing the company and the appointment of an outside lawyer to monitor major company decisions. The firm also pledged not to enter into deals with foreign governments, although Trump’s son – Eric Trump, the company’s de facto leader – has said the Trump Organization will continue to pursue overseas deals during his father’s presidency.

Richard Painter, who served as the top White House ethics lawyer in the administration of President George W. Bush and repeatedly criticized Trump’s adherence to ethics standards during his first term, said the new plan still falls short of what many previous presidents have done.

Trump, Painter said, should “conduct his affairs as though the financial conflict of interest statute applies to him.”

One of the first events in the coming days marking the former president’s return to office will put a spotlight on a Trump-owned property: a Saturday night reception and fireworks display at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, on the banks of the Potomac River.

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