TheChek News Flow

Billionaire says ‘complex’ financial ties triggered withdrawal from consideration for top economy role

Wall Street investors Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick are the leading contenders to be Donald Trump’s treasury secretary after hedge fund billionaire John Paulson dropped out of the race for the job.

Paulson said on Tuesday that his “complex financial obligations would prevent” him from entering the administration “at this time” but he would continue advising Trump’s economic team.

“I’m ecstatic that President Trump will be back in office,” he wrote. “He is off to a fast start with his appointments, and his policies will have an immensely positive impact on all Americans.”

News of the withdrawal leaves Bessent, a former chief investment officer at George Soros’s family office, and Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Lutnick, who is also co-chair of the Trump transition team, in pole position to compete for the job.

Both have been spotted around Palm Beach and Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and resort, since the former president won a convincing election victory last week.

Trump has moved quickly to fill the key posts in his administration, including appointing a national security adviser and nominating a secretary of interior, but several top jobs remain including that of Treasury secretary, the new government’s most significant economy position.

Paulson emerged as a Trump Treasury candidate earlier this year but told the Financial Times in September that it was “not so easy” for him to unwind his significant holdings.

He had been a major money-raker for Trump, including earlier this year hosting a fundraiser at his Palm Beach home, which the Trump campaign said raised more than $50mn.

Bessent, chief of Key Square Capital Management, appeared on rightwing ideologue Steve Bannon’s podcast “War Room” on Tuesday and floated cutting government spending by $1tn over the next decade. Musk has called for even deeper cuts to the federal budget.

“I think if we could get $100bn a year over 10 years that scores at $1tn in this cockamamie CBO scoring that’ll stabilise the bond market and we can go from there,” said Bessent, referring to the Congressional Budget Office. “It’s an incredible opportunity.”

Bessent said “the really insidious part” of the Biden agenda was not necessarily taxes but the “regulatory burden”. He called for “a big push in bank deregulation”, saying “community banks need to be allowed to lend to their communities”.

He also remarked upon the state of the overall economy, saying that rich people and big companies have done well, while the bottom half of wage earners have gotten “crushed”.

“I’m a Wall Street guy who loves Main Street,” said Bessent. “Main Street has to drive this Trump boom.”

One former Republican congressional aide said Bessent’s candidacy could face resistance from some close to Trump because of his past work for Soros. The aide also claimed that Bessent was more devoted to pro-business deregulation than to the president-elect’s plans for sweeping tariffs.

“My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” Bessent told the FT last month, referring to Trump. “It’s escalate to de-escalate.”

Writer has raised $200 million at a $1.9 billion valuation to expand its enterprise-focused generative AI platform.

The Series C round was co-led by Premji Invest, Radical Ventures and ICONIQ Growth, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Adobe Ventures, B Capital, Citi Ventures, IBM Ventures and Workday Ventures.

Writer CEO May Habib says the new cash, which brings the startup’s total raised to $326 million, will be used for product development and “cementing the company’s leadership in the enterprise generative AI category.”

“At Writer, we’re not just creating AI models that can execute tasks, but developing advanced AI systems that deliver mission-critical enterprise work,” said Habib in a statement. “With this new funding, we’re laser-focused on delivering the next generation of autonomous AI solutions that are secure, reliable, and adaptable in highly complex, real-world enterprise scenarios.”

Writer was founded in 2020 by Habib and Waseem AlShikh. The two previously launched Qordoba together, which helped companies localize products to new markets.

Writer has grown over the years into a full-stack generative AI platform, with products that can be customized for various enterprise use cases.

In 2023, Writer launched its own family of models, Palmyra, for text generation. Later that year, the firm debuted features that connect business data sources to its models, along with the ability for customers to self-host Writer-created models.

Just in October, Writer released a model, Palmyra X 004, trained almost entirely on synthetic data. Developing it cost just $700,000, Writer claims — compared to estimates of $4.6 million for a comparably-sized OpenAI model.

Writer’s current focus is on “AI agents” that can plan and execute workflows across systems and teams, as well as customizable AI guardrails and a suite of no-code development tools.

Despite the intense competition in the generative AI space, Writer has done quite well for itself. The company has hundreds of clients, including Mars, Ally Bank, Qualcomm, Salesforce, Uber, Accenture, L’Oreal and Intuit.

“There’s a tremendous amount of engineering required to transform models into reliable business tools,” Patrick Stokes, EVP of product and industries marketing at Salesforce, said in a press release. “Writer provides a refined, AI-powered solution that’s effective, easy to deploy, and has rapidly accelerated our workflows here at Salesforce. We’re excited to join them on this journey not only as an investor, but also as a customer.”

Accenture, Balderton, Insight Partners and Vanguard also participated in Writer’s Series C.

Writer’s latest funding is another sign venture capital’s enthusiasm for generative AI isn’t waning. According to a report from Accel, generative AI startups will get 40% of all VC cash poured into cloud technologies this year. And in the first half of 2024, investments in generative AI startups topped $3.9 billion, per Pitchbook — not counting OpenAI’s $6.6 billion round.

The generative AI market is projected to surpass $1 trillion in revenue within the next decade. It faces headwinds, however, like privacy and copyright challenges, and architectural issues that cause phenomenons like hallucinations.

Investor says his ‘complex financial obligations’ would prevent him from joining administration

Veteran investor John Paulson is dropping out of the running to become President-elect Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary, he said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

“Although various media outlets have mentioned me as a candidate for Secretary of the Treasury, my complex financial obligations would prevent me from holding an official position in President Trump’s administration at this time,” Paulson said in the statement. “However, I intend to remain actively involved with the President’s economic team and helping in the implementation of President Trump’s outstanding policy proposals.”

Paulson, who has been an ardent supporter of Trump’s for years, was among a group of people being considered by Trump to be the next Treasury secretary, according to people familiar with the matter.

His decision to remove himself from consideration essentially clears a lane for fellow investor Scott Bessent to land the post. Bessent in recent days has become the favorite to get the job in the next Trump administration, several Trump allies have said. Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.) is also seen as a contender, the Journal has previously reported.