The billionaire father-in-law of the new Fed chair is a college friend of Trump’s and has business interests in Greenland

After months of teasing, President Trump announced on Friday morning that he would select Kevin Warsh to replace the current Fed Chair Jerome Powell when his term ends in May. Journalist leaks on Thursday evening had already alerted prediction markets, which had Warsh’s odds at around 91% right before the announcement.

Warsh, 55, is a somewhat unexpected choice by Trump. For one thing, the two fundamentally disagree on monetary policy. The former Fed governor famously resigned from his position in 2011 due to concerns that the Fed was injecting too much money into the system. He’s a classic “hard-money guy” who favors a strong dollar and a tight balance sheet.

Trump, on the other hand, has made his preference for a more dovish chair well-known, criticizing Powell throughout his term for what he considered excessively high interest rates. The president believes in a weaker dollar and looser monetary conditions to boost business investment and support both foreign and domestic spending.

But as Trump has recently suggested, a quality in a Fed chair that is even more desirable than dovishness is loyalty. In Switzerland, Trump lamented Fed chairs who say “everything I want to hear” until they actually get the job – then, “all of a sudden, ‘let’s raise rates a little bit.'”

“It’s too bad – kind of disloyal – but they have to do what they think is right,” he added.

With Warsh, the president might be wagering that the opposite will occur: that someone who is theoretically ideologically opposed will prove more flexible in practice.

Warsh has the right kind of background for Trump. He was a young Wall Street executive and now heads a variety of prestigious think tanks. He also happens to have family connections to the President.

, Jane Lauder, is a billionaire granddaughter of Estée Lauder, the businesswoman behind the skincare brand that bears her name. Her father is Ronald Lauder, as the two were undergraduates together at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school. Trump and Lauder have remained close friends and confidants ever since.

Lauder sparked Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland back in 2020 and has continued to advise him on the matter. It was reported earlier this month that Lauder has acquired commercial holdings in Greenland and is part of the consortium seeking access to Ukrainian materials.

According to Arctic press, Lauder is a participant in an investor group called Greenland Development Partners, which supports water, energy, and infrastructure projects in the Arctic territory. He has also reportedly invested in a small bottled-water company called Greenland Water Bank.

“Trump’s Greenland concept was never absurd – it was strategic,” Lauder wrote in an op-ed for the New York Post titled “I’m a Greenland expert – these 3 paths can make it America’s next frontier.”

“I have worked closely with Greenland’s business and government leaders for years to develop strategic investments there, even as the Biden administration, unsurprisingly, ignored and underestimated its vast opportunity,” Lauder wrote.

In addition to being the sole heir of the Companies, Lauder has been president of the World Jewish Congress and was previously named by Ronald Reagan as ambassador to Austria.

Lauder also seems deeply in tune with Trump’s way of thinking. Speaking to a crowd at a Jewish National Fund for Arizona breakfast in 2017, he described Trump as a populist figure that elites fail to understand.

“The Donald I know is very smart,” Lauder said, according to The Arizona Republic. “He’s speaking for the Americans, and the question is why a company should be allowed to close its doors, lay off 2,000 or 3,000 people who will probably never find a job again, and move to Mexico without any consequences.” Of course, how much Lauder’s close relationship with Trump influences his son-in-law’s views is unclear. But Warsh himself has recently softened his hawkish stance, arguing in a Wall Street Journal piece that artificial intelligence could prove a significant deflationary force through productivity gains, potentially creating room to lower borrowing costs.

In the same op-ed, he also echoed Lauder’s praise of Trump as a man of the people.

“Perhaps the most underappreciated characteristic of the Trump administration is its admiration for individual achievement,” Warsh wrote. ” Treating people based on their merits rather than their status or sensibilities is the renewed American credo.”