POWER OF THE PURSE

There's never been an administration this rich. History says it won't end well.

- Tim Murphy

DONALD TRUMP is assembling a government the likes of which the United States has never seen. He has tapped five reported billionaires for Cabinet posts: former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for interior secretary, hedge funder Scott Bessent for treasury secretary, Cantor Fitzgerald chief Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary, wrestling magnate Linda McMahon for education secretary (I know, just roll with it), and ex-Sen. Kelly Loeffler-wife of former New York Stock Exchange Chair Jeffrey Sprecher-for small business administrator.

Those appointments are almost normal compared with the billionaires Trump is installing elsewhere. After Elon Musk spent a quarter-billion dollars to get him and his allies elected, Trump made the world's richest man co-chair of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, where, despite being one of the government's largest contractors, Musk has tasked himself with trimming about $2 trillion from the budget.

He's joined in the administration by Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks, who Trump announced would serve as his "A.1. and Crypto Czar." Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate magnate who's reportedly enmeshed in Gulf state sovereign wealth funds, will be Trump's Middle East envoy. Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman-a Musk ally who moonlights as a commercial astronaut for SpaceX-will run NASA. Private equity mogul Stephen Feinberg, whose firm owns the company that trained journalist Jamal Khashoggi's killers, is Trump's pick for deputy secretary of defense. Fiserv President Frank Bisignano (worth, according to Axios, just shy of $1 billion-for now) is set to oversee Social Security. Tiffany Trump's father-in-law, Massad Boulos, slated to be a Middle East adviser, was frequently described in the press as a billionaire until the New York Times revealed he actually just ran a Nigerian trucking business and once tried to sell an "erotic" energy drink called Tantra Beverages.