List of economic advisors to Donald Trump


As part of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, various economists and businesspeople have served both in a formal and an informal capacity, to advise Trump on macroeconomics and associated government policy decisions. During the transition to the presidency, Trump gained additional advisors, and after the inauguration some of his advisors will officially become part of the Trump administration while others will remain in the private sector as informal advisors with varying degrees of influence.

Background

During his presidential campaign

Trump released initial details of his economic policies when his campaign officially began in June 2015, and more details during the first Republican debates which began in August 2015. Although critical of certain aspects of Trump's early economic plans, especially increasing tariffs as opposed to free trade policies, Larry Kudlow and Steve Moore would eventually agree to join the Trump campaign as advisors. Although most presidential candidates had announced a team of formal economic advisors by October 2015, at the time Trump still primarily relied upon his business background to inform his economic plan. In addition to his own business expertise, Trump had a network of contacts that sometimes served as informal economic advisors during his campaign, including Carl Icahn. Even as late as July 2016, however, Kudlow and Moore were still not official advisors, despite having already helped craft some of Trump's policy-positions related to taxation for instance.

During the general election

Trump released a list of his campaign's official economic advisers in August 2016, which was significantly anti-establishment and therefore included few people with any governmental experience, yet at the same time aimed to include some of the elites of business and finance, primarily people with well-known names.
Although most of the names were new, existing Trump advisers David Malpass, Peter Navarro, Stephen Moore, and Dan DiMicco were also on the list, formally led by Stephen Miller, the national policy director, and directly led by deputy policy director Dan Kowalski. The Trump'16 finance director Steven Mnuchin was also listed, and played a role in helping coordinate the group. Many of the names on the original list, or on the subsequent expansions thereof, received media attention as potential appointees to the presidential Council of Economic Advisers, or in other Trump administration roles. As of August 2016, Trump's economic advisors included:
Several of the advisors were major donors to Trump's presidential campaign.
At first, only one of Trump's initial list of a dozen official advisors, Peter Navarro, had a PhD in economics. Although he had been in contact with Trump since 2011, Navarro had never met nor spoken with Trump directly in August 2016, but began to meet with Trump in person late in the 2016 campaign. A few days after Navarro was announced, Trump added Judy Shelton, an economist with a Ph.D in business administration to his team.

As the [President-elect]

As of December 2016, many of the advisors during the campaign listed above are under consideration for cabinet-level roles or other high-level roles in the Trump administration.

Informal presidential advisors

In addition to his statutory advisory groups, Trump is also organizing efforts to directly communicate with business leaders.

Technology industry

Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel originally baked fellow Californian and tech industry candidate Carly Fiorina, but implicitly endorsed Trump in May 2016, then spoke at the Republican National Convention that July. Thiel donated over a million dollars in October 2016. A few days after the general election, Thiel joined the executive committee of the Trump transition team, although Thiel said he was not seeking a full-time Trump administration position.
In addition to bringing some of his tech industry contacts to the Trump team, Thiel, along with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, helped organize a technology-CEO meeting in December 2016 for Trump and Pence, as well as a handful of appointees and transition team members.
AttendeeNet worthPosition and companyMarket capTrump administration
Jeff Bezos$66,400 millionCEO of Amazon and Blue Origin$372 billionprivate sector
Larry Page$39,500 millionCEO of Alphabet $560 billionprivate sector
Eric Schmidt$11,500 millionChairman of Alphabet $560 billionprivate sector
Donald Trump$3,700 millionOwner of The Trump OrganizationunspecifiedPresident
Wilbur Ross$2,900 millionFormer co-CEO at Invesco$12 billionCommerce
Peter Thiel$2,700 millionChairman of Palantir$20 billion transition team
Alex Karp$1,600 millionCEO of Palantir$20 billion private sector
Sheryl Sandberg$1,270 millionCOO of Facebook$354 billionprivate sector
Tim Cook$785 millionCEO of Apple Computer$624 billionprivate sector
Safra Catz$525 millionCEO of Oracle Corp$169 billionprivate sector
Gary Cohn$266 millionFormer president of Goldman Sachs$93 billionDirector N.E.C.
Jared Kushner$200 millionOwner of Kushner Companiesunspecifiedtransition team
Ivanka Trump$150 millionCo-heir of The Trump Organizationtransition team
Donald Trump, Jr.$150 millionCo-heir & EVP of The Trump Organizationtransition team
Eric Trump$150 millionCo-heir & EVP of The Trump Organizationtransition team
Satya Nadella$84 millionCEO of Microsoft$494 billionprivate sector
Brad Smith$58 millionPresident of Microsoft$494 billionprivate sector
Ginni Rometty$45 millionCEO of IBM$163 billionprivate sector
Chuck Robbins$13 millionCEO of Cisco$155 billionprivate sector
Brian Krzanich$12 millionCEO of Intel$177 billionprivate sector
Steve Bannon$10 millionFormer chairman of BreitbartunspecifiedStrategist
Mike PenceunknownFormer Governor of IndianaVice-President
Reince PriebusunknownFormer RNC chairmanChief of Staff
Stephen MillerunknownFormer comms. dir. for Jeff SessionsSr. Advisor

Airbnb was also invited to attend the tech-CEO meeting, but their CEO was traveling internationally that week.
The details of the December 2016 meeting were not made public, but according to anonymous sources, reforming the H1B visa program was discussed.
Of the above, Stephen Bannon resigned on 18 August 2017; Reince Prebus was fired on 11 March 2017.

Business-oriented strategy and policy group

In addition to the tech-industry group, there is also a more general business advisory group being formed. Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone organized the business advisory group, which also includes:
It is unclear whether Trump or his transition team have personally met with this advisory group, but media reports indicate that some of the members were considered for cabinet-level positions in his administration.

Agricultural industry

During his campaign, Trump had several dozen agricultural advisors.

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