Donald Trump is busy preparing for his inauguration — and one of the most vital tasks is nominating people for roles within his administration.
The US president-elect will need to employ 25 cabinet members and staff who will support them as he aims to deliver on his promise to “make America great again” for a second time.
Mr Trump’s administration is set to feature some eye-catching names, with Robert F Kennedy Jr and Elon Musk among his picks for top jobs.
The roles will need Senate approval and the process could involve plenty of back-and-forth (and take quite some time) if Democrats, or indeed any concerned Republicans, attempt to block the appointments.
With more names to be added, here are some key names in Team Trump 2.0.
Chris Wright
Mr Wright, a big name in the oil and gas industry, is Mr Trump’s pick for energy secretary.
I am honored and grateful for the opportunity from @realDonaldTrump to serve our country as U.S. Secretary of Energy. My dedication to bettering human lives remains steadfast, with a focus on making American energy more affordable, reliable, and secure. Energy is the lifeblood… pic.twitter.com/IfjMQw9xKi
— Chris Wright (@ChrisAWright_) November 16, 2024
Mr Wright — who has no political experience — is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, which promotes the service of fracking. The contentious process involves extracting fossil fuels from tight rock forms but can cause many environmental problems, including water pollution, wildlife and habitat damage.
The appointment serves Mr Trump’s election campaign motto “drill, baby, drill”. Mr Wright is also a notable climate change sceptic. In a video on his LinkedIn page, he says: “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”
Robert F Kennedy Jr
The nephew of John F Kennedy was an independent candidate for president before withdrawing and voicing his support for Mr Trump in August. An anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, the environmental lawyer, 70, has been announced as the president-elect’s health secretary.
Speaking at a rally before the election, Mr Trump said that Mr Kennedy — who is better known as RFK — would have a “big role in the administration” and that he’d let him “go wild on food” and “go wild on medicines”.
Mr Kennedy will oversee departments including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Mr Trump said on X (formerly Twitter) that Mr Kennedy would “restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again”.
Elon Musk
One of Mr Trump’s many billionaire friends and among his biggest financial supporters during the election, the SpaceX and X chief executive Elon Musk has officially been promised a role in the president-elect’s upcoming administration.
Mr Musk, 53, is set to co-lead a new department: the Department of Government Efficiency (which shares its name with crypto-currency dogecoin). The ‘DOGE’ will operate outside the confines of government and “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” the president-elect said.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Mr Musk’s co-lead is American entrepreneur, Vivek Ramaswamy. The businessman, 39, ran to be the Republican’s presidential candidate for the 2024 election but ended his campaign in January.
Like the X owner, the Cincinnati native is a billionaire.
He studied at both Harvard and Yale and at the former, he founded the Campus Venture Network, a private social networking website for university students who wanted to become entrepreneurs. The company was sold to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2009.
He has also worked for hedge funds and, in 2020, co-founded Chapter Medicare, a Medicare navigation platform.
In recent years, he’s turned his attention away from business and focused on his political ambitions.
Linda McMahon
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) co-founder Linda McMahon, 76, is Mr Trump’s pick for education secretary.
Ms McMahon co-founded the wrestling league with her husband, Vince, in 1980 but resigned as CEO in 2009 to pursue a political career.
She has run for a Senate seat twice — and failed both times. Nevertheless, she has carved out a political career thanks to Mr Trump and led the Small Business Administration during his first term in the White House.
She was on Connecticut's board of education between 2009 and 2010 but it is unclear what other experience she can draw from in her new role.
Announcing the nomination in a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said Ms McMahon would "use her decades of leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers".
Mehmet Oz
Mehmet Oz is best known to Americans as Dr Oz, thanks to the eponymous daytime TV show he’s fronted for decades. But now, he’ll be using his medical knowledge entirely differently.
The TV doctor, 64, will lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, under RFK Jr’s health remit.
Mr Trump’s transition team said Dr Oz would “work closely with Mr Kennedy Jr to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake”.
But his appointment is another that may raise eyebrows. Like RFK Jr, Dr Oz was criticised for pushing misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic when he claimed malaria drugs could cure the virus.
Nevertheless, Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: “There may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again.”
Pete Hegseth
Mr Trump has raised eyebrows with his choice for secretary of defence: Fox News host Pete Hegseth.
Mr Hegseth, 44, has served in the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq but has no senior national security experience.
Politically, he has positioned himself firmly on the right, championing an ‘anti-woke’ agenda and lobbying for the pardoning of service members charged with war crimes. He’s also questioned the role of women in combat.
“Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat, that means casualties are worse,” he once said on a podcast.
Susie Wiles
Susie Wiles was named the first member of Trump’s team. In his victory speech on November 7, he referred to Ms Wiles as “the ice maiden”. He thanked her for her part in his win and invited her to speak to the crowd — which she declined. “Susie likes to stay in the back, let me tell you,” Mr Trump said.
Ms Wiles was the de facto manager of Mr Trump’s election campaign and was considered the favourite for the position. The daughter of former American footballer Pat Summerall will become the first woman in history to be chief of staff.
The 67-year-old’s political career began in the 1970s. She was an assistant to Jack Kemp, a Republican representative for New York and former professional American football player who played alongside her father.
She also worked on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign and Dan Quayle’s vice-presidential campaign in 1988.
The 2024 election isn’t the first time Wiles has worked with president-elect Mr Trump. In 2020, he credited her with being an integral part of his unsuccessful presidential bid.
Tom Homan
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A large part of Mr Trump’s presidential campaign was his pledge to launch the biggest deportation of undocumented migrants in the country’s history. To help lead this, the president-elect has recruited Tom Homan, the former director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He announced Mr Homan’s appointment as the new “border czar” on November 10. via his social network, Truth Social.
“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” he wrote, explaining that Mr Homan will be responsible for “all deportation of illegal aliens back to their country of origin”.
Former president Barack Obama appointed Mr Homan, 62, as the executive associate director of ICE in 2013. Mr Trump promoted him to acting director during his first stint as president in 2017.
Although Mr Obama rejected Mr Homan’s proposal for a contentious family separation policy to deter immigrants from entering the US illegally, Mr Trump supported the idea. He introduced it as a “zero-tolerance” immigration enforcement policy in 2018.
Elise Stefanik
The BBC reported on November 12 that New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, 40, had become an ambassador to the United Nations.
The BBC said she was a long-time Mr Trump ally and a staunch supporter of Israel. She has reportedly criticised the UN for what she argues is a lack of sufficient backing for its war against Hamas elected to Congress.
Over the past decade, Ms Stefanik shifted from moderately conservative to the far right. She became one of Mr Trump’s most loyal supporters, fiercely defending him during his 2019 impeachment hearings. This prompted Mr Trump to call her a “Republican star”.
Marco Rubio
The president-elect has nominated Marco Rubio, 53, as his Secretary of State.
Mr Rubio is the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and was considered for Mr Trump's vice president shortlist earlier this year.
He has previously called for a stronger foreign policy to be introduced, especially against the likes of China, Iran and Cuba.
Mr Rubio ran for president unsuccessfully in 2016 against Mr Trump.
Whose roles have not yet been confirmed?
Don Jr, Eric, Ivanka and Lara Trump
Judging by Mr Trump’s first time as president, he likes to keep things in the family. Despite telling Fox News in 2023 that his children wouldn’t be a part of his administration a second time around (”It’s too painful for the family, my family’s been through hell”), his sons Don Jr and Eric played large roles in his 2024 campaign.
Donald Trump Jr, 46, the president-elect's eldest son, had a leading role in his father’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. As an adviser to his father, it is believed he encouraged him to appoint Ohio senator JD Vance as his running mate.
The roles of Don Jr and Eric, 40 — the latter serves as the executive vice president of the Trump Organization — have not yet been announced. Eric’s wife, Lara, may also join her father-in-law’s administration. The co-chair of the Republican Party, she has long been a campaigner for Mr Trump’s presidential bids and even considered running for Senate in 2022.
Ivanka, Mr Trump’s eldest daughter played a prominent role in his last presidency as his senior adviser, alongside her husband, Jared Kushner.
However, both were notably absent from his 2024 campaign. “I love my father very much,” 43-year-old Ivanka — often believed to be Mr Trump’s favourite child — said when her father announced his presidential run in 2022.
“This time around, I am choosing to prioritise my young children and the private life we are creating as a family.”
