Billionaire Scott Bessent is poised to break ground as America’s first openly-gay Treasury Secretary after Donald Trump selected him for the role on Friday.
If approved by the Senate, the 62-year-old founder of global macro investment firm Key Square Group will helm America’s economic policies for the next four years.
The hedge fund heavyweight is known for running in the same social circles as King Charles, being one of Trump’s closest advisors, and living in an iconic pink mansion with his husband and two children.
So what do we know about Bessent’s life outside the world of finance with his husband of 13 years, ex attorney John Freeman?
Freeman is a former prosecutor, reportedly in New York City, but he has been living with Bessent in their southern mansion known as the Pink Palace for eight years.
They tied the knot in 2011, before purchasing the eight-bedroom, 10-bath home in Bessent’s native South Carolina for $6.5 million in 2016.
Their three-story stucco mansion in Charleston’s historic Battery neighborhood gained its reputation as the Pink Palace as a bed and breakfast before Bessent’s move made it a residential property.
The couple didn’t move in with their two school-age children until 2019, following a colossal three-year renovation.
Bessent’s family is preparing to move out soon – after he listed the property for sale on October 28 for $22.25 million.
Trump’s transition team said Bessent was moving elsewhere in the same city, adding that the listing, right before election day, was due to their kids flying the nest.
‘Mr. Bessent is under contract to purchase another home in Charleston,’ spokesman Raj Shah told the Daily Beast.
‘With children no longer at home, he and his spouse are downsizing.’
Their teenage son, Cole, and younger daughter, Caroline, adopted the double-barrel surname Bessent-Freeman, and according to the Daily Beast they study abroad.
Pro-tariff Bessent and Freeman are likely moving to Washington for the second Trump administration come the inauguration on January 20.
Bessent appears to have said little in public about his relationship with Freeman specifically – but he reflected on how far gay rights have come in America since he graduated from Yale University with a degree in political science in 1984.
‘In a certain geographic region at a certain economic level, being gay is not an issue,’ he told the Yale Alumni Magazine in 2015.
‘What’s fantastic is now, people in the rest of America, whether blue collar or white collar, have access to everything.
‘If you had told me in 1984, when we graduated, and people were dying of AIDS, that 30 years later I’d be legally married and we would have two children via surrogacy, I wouldn’t have believed you.’
