Meet the wealthy former business leaders heading to the Senate
Donald Trump is many things, including a businessman. As the next president of the United States, he’ll be relying on a number of fellow former business leaders to help get his global economy-changing plans through the Senate.
It’s not uncommon for members of Congress to have some degree of background in business.
In the latest iteration of Congress, 33 senators had a business or banking background, making it the third-most common prior occupation, only outmatched by law and public service backgrounds, according to The Brookings Institution. In the House, 168 representatives had a business or banking background, making it the second-most common prior experience.
Now, five more — Republican — businessmen are ready to join the Senate. Here’s who they are.
Dave McCormick
Dave McCormick last week defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey to become Pennsylvania’s next senator, a big win for the former consultant and hedge fund executive.
According to his LinkedIn, McCormick worked at the consultancy McKinsey & Company for a handful of years before he joined FreeMarkets in 1999, as the company was going public. By 2002, he had become CEO and led the company’s overseas expansion. He also led its sale to Ariba in early 2004, leaving the company in 2005.
After a stint in the Treasury Department, McCormick joined Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund managing $168 billion as of 2022. By 2017, he had become co-CEO, later becoming the sole chief in April 2020.
His time at Bridgewater opened him up to several attacks on the campaign trail, thanks to his history of betting against local legends — like U.S. Steel (X) and The Hershey Company (HSY) — as well as investments in a Chinese firm producing fentanyl.
A 2023 book on Bridgewater and Dalio, Rob Copeland’s “The Fund,” reported that McCormick advocated for closer ties with Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco, according to Go Erie. He also helped Dalio pressure a female employee who accused then-CEO Greg Jensen of groping her to be a “supportive public presence.”
According to The Huffington Post, citing financial disclosures, McCormick and his wife, former Goldman Sachs (GS) partner and Trump administration official Dina Powell, have a collective net worth of between $95 million and $196 million.
McCormick last ran for office in 2022 but fell short during the Republican primary. Another businessman, Dr. Mehmet Oz, instead emerged victorious before his scandal-ridden campaign ended with his own defeat at the hands of Democratic Sen. John Fetterman.
The Associated Press has projected McCormick as the winner of the 2024 Senate race, although Democratic rival and incumbent Sen. Bob Casey hasn’t conceded. As of Monday afternoon, with 98% of ballots counted, McCormick has a 39,650 vote lead on Casey, with 49% of the vote to Casey’s 48.43%.
Jim Justice
Former West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is set to succeed retiring Independent Sen. Joe Manchin in the Senate, having soundly defeated his Democratic rival.
His father ran and later sold his own coal company, Ranger Fuel, for several million dollars. After Justice graduated from college and married his wife, he went to work for his family’s Bluestone Coal and Bluestone Industries, a coal and corn farming business worth about $25 million, The Washington Post reported in 2011.
By 2019, Justice and his family owned around 100 companies, including the GreenBrier, a 710-room luxury resort that once housed Congress’ nuclear fallout shelter and had a net worth of about $1.5 billion. Justice has said control of those companies has been turned over to his children.
Justice and his companies have been slow to pay the bills and are frequent tax dodgers, Forbes reported in 2019, labeling him the “deadbeat billionaire.” He’s been pursued for hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid fines, judgments, and other obligations, according to The New York Times. His latest financial disclosure, filed in July, lists liabilities well into the millions.
Bernie Moreno
Bernie Moreno, a former car dealer, defeated Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, a key ally of the United Auto Workers union, to join the Senate.
Moreno once owned a sizable empire of car dealerships, owning at least 15 representing 30 brands across a handful of states. But, over the years, Moreno began selling off his dealerships, ending with an Infiniti store in Florida in 2022.
He also launched a company focused on putting car titles on the blockchain named Champ Titles alongside company CEO Shane Bigelow, as well as Drive Options, a vehicle subscription service. He has since exited most of his businesses, leaving him with assets of between $38 million and $172.7 million, according to financial disclosures.
In August, Moreno identified himself as a manager of two companies that are developing a Mercedes-Benz (MBGAF) dealership. He told NBC News that he is an investor in that venture, which will be run by his son Kevin and be located in the Columbus area. Moreno said he would relinquish his stake in one of the companies, which he listed as an asset, if he won the election.
Tim Sheehy
After leaving his active-duty career in the Navy in 2014, Montana Senator-elect Tim Sheehy founded Bridger Aerospace, an Belgrade-based aerial firefighting and aerospace services company.
The Republican launched Bridger as its sole employee with one aircraft helping ranchers track their cattle, before expanding to use drone technology to map out blazes and for surveillance purposes, according to The Bozeman Daily Chronicle. In 2018, the company became the first to legally fly a drone over a wildfire, and a year later its tech was used by the U.S. military against an Iranian drone.
In 2022, Bridger agreed to go public through a deal with Jack Creek Investment Corp, a so-called blank check company, which closed the following year and cost the company almost $17 million. In September 2023, a member of Bridger’s board resigned, calling their departure “a result of the functioning of the Board’s Audit Committee.”
Sheehy resigned from his post as CEO and from the company’s board of directors in July, with Bridger’s chief of staff Sam Davis taking over as interim CEO. On Monday, Bridger said it would officially began searching for a new CEO and that Sheehy’s brother, Matt Sheehy, had resigned from the board to avoid conflict of interest allegations.
Bridger recorded $64.5 million in revenue for its third quarter, up 20% compared to a year earlier, and net income of $27.3 million, compared to $17.5 million during the same time in 2023. The company lost $2.7 million between January and September, a better showing compared to the $46.2 million it lost a year earlier, according to regulatory filings.
John Curtis
Although Senator-elect John Curtis’ business history isn’t as extensive as some of his fellow newcomers to the chamber, it’s not shabby either.
After a series of gigs, including a 10-year stint as regional manager for O.C. Tanner, the Utah Republican joined Action Target, a custom shooting range and steel target manufacturer. At Action Target, Curtis became a part owner and chief operations officer, carrying out a “major alignment of resources,” according to his LinkedIn page.
“At one point, we were using about 5% of the world’s hardened steel in our factory to build shooting ranges, including a lot of ranges for law enforcement and recreation,” Curtis told the Specialty Equipment Market Association in 2021. “We had some very proprietary products, bullet traps and trade targets. It was really a fun business.”
After selling the business, Curtis ran for mayor of Provo, Utah, where Action Target is based. After two terms as mayor, he joined the House of Representatives in 2017 representing Utah’s third congressional district.
