Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has emerged victorious after a fiery secret battle with Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk, The New York Times revealed on Friday.
Bessent got permission from President Donald Trump Friday to fire interim Internal Revenue Service (IRS) head Gary Shapley, whom Musk had installed on Tuesday without getting Bessent’s approval—or even asking for it.
Bessent, who oversees the IRS, took issue with this end-run. Insiders told the Times he felt that Musk had gone behind his back. After bringing the issue to Trump, Bessent was permitted to fire Shapley—who only lasted three days in the role—and replace him with his deputy secretary at the Treasury, Michael Faulkender.
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In a statement released after the Times published its story, Bessent confirmed the leadership switch at the IRS without mentioning the power struggle behind it.
“Trust must be brought back to the IRS, and I am fully confident that Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender is the right man for the moment,” he said. “Gary Shapley’s passion and thoughtfulness for approaching ways by which to create durable and lasting reforms at the IRS is essential to our work, and he remains among my most important senior advisors at the U.S. Treaury.”
Shapley’s selection to lead the IRS had earned praise from MAGAnation. A career staffer at the agency, Shapley in 2023 provided whistleblower testimony to Congress that former President Joe Biden’s Justice Department had treaded water on a probe into the finances of Hunter Biden, the former president’s son. On Friday, though, Shapley was out.
Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, Musk and Bessent have been at odds. Musk opposed Bessent as Treasury secretary, describing him as the “business-as-usual” choice. He advocated instead for Howard Lutnick, whom Trump wound up tapping as commerce secretary.
The feud, which reached a new height as it played out behind the scenes this week, seeped into the public eye on Thursday night.
Musk boosted an attack on Bessent from MAGA influencer and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. The far-right commentator exposed Bessent for inviting a “pro-impeachment and pro-censorship Trump hater to collaborate with him” at the Treasury.
Loomer was referring to John Hope Bryant, who runs an anti-poverty non-profit called Operation HOPE. She pointed to social media posts Bryant shared in 2021 that praised Twitter’s ban of Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Earlier this month, Loomer—who has long been on the fringes of the far right—was behind the ouster of six National Security Council officials earlier this month after she convinced Trump of their disloyalty.
Musk shared Loomer’s attack and called the development “troubling.”
Bessent in a post two weeks ago called Bryant his “longtime friend” and announced that the two had met and were going to work together on a financial literacy campaign for the Treasury.
After the Musk repost, Loomer responded with a screenshot of another post from Bryant from earlier this year in which he had shared an NPR article that featured criticism of Musk for doing “insane s---.”
“Yah, did you know that @SecScottBessent’s ‘longtime friend’ @johnhopebryant even attacked you too, @elonmusk,” she wrote.
This prompted Musk to up the ante with an even more pointed attack on Bessent around 4 a.m. on Friday morning. “The strong Soros affiliation is concerning,” the world’s richest man wrote back to Loomer.
Musk was referring to the fact that Bessent, a hedge fund manager, has worked alongside George Soros, a multibillionaire investor and philanthropist who has served as a bogeyman for the right over his donations to progressive causes.
As a rookie investor out of Yale, Bessent worked on the London team of Soros’s fund in the 1980s. He became the chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management in 2011. Four years later, he departed to launch his own hedge fund—with $2 billion from Soros.
Last month, Soros was accused by Musk, without evidence, of bankrolling the protests at Tesla dealerships. Defenders of Soros have characterized the finger-pointing to his influence as playing on anti-semitic conspiracy theories about wealthy Jewish people’s control of world events.
Musk’s near-constant stream X posts came to a halt shortly before the Times report about his battle with Bessent published.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to offer details on the dispute.
“It’s no secret President Trump has put together a team of people who are incredibly passionate about the issues impacting our country,” she said. “Disagreements are a normal part of any healthy policy process, and ultimately, everyone knows they serve at the pleasure of President Trump.”
