On Friday, President-elect Trump announced the nomination of hedge fund manager Scott Bessent for secretary of the Treasury. While he had long been floated as a contender for the role, the announcement elicited a mild startle from some Cabinet watchers, akin to seeing KFC Crocs for the first time and thinking, “Huh, that really happened.”

A swanky job goes to an establishment guy

Bessent was viewed as Wall Street’s pick for the position. His admirers include JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. But unlike Dimon, Bessent supports crypto.

That was not enough to impress Elon Musk, who took to X during the selection process and called Bessent the “business-as-usual” option and backed Howard Lutnick (who instead will be nominated for Commerce secretary).

Before announcing Bessent, Trump spent several days looking around for a “splashier alternative,” according to Bloomberg.

Jejune but shrewd. While Bessent’s reputation is at odds with the brash change-makers who typically win Trump’s attention, he was not a passive bystander. He is said to have laid the groundwork for the nomination for months, in part by publicly offering Trump recommendations to help his causes:

• In early October, Bessent promoted a novel solution to Trump’s Fed chair difficulties: If the president could not fire Jerome Powell before his term ends in late 2026 or chose not to, he could make a very early announcement of who his successor would be, and that candidate could publicly share their opinions on policy, which would essentially create a “shadow Fed chair.”
• In a Nov. 15 opinion piece for Fox News, Bessent wrote that high tariffs, which Trump wants but mainstream finance is mostly wary of, were “a useful tool for achieving the president’s foreign policy objectives,” betting that equating tariffs with sanctions may make them more palatable.

History in the making: If confirmed, Bessent would be the first openly gay Treasury secretary.—HVL

COP29 participants agree to $300 billion deal. Yesterday, the countries at the COP29 climate summit in Baku struck a deal that would provide low-income countries impacted the most by climate change $300 billion annually starting in 2035. Twelve so-called rich countries, including the US, will provide the funds. But countries that stand to be greatly impacted, like the Republic of the Marshall Islands, found the amount of support “woefully insufficient.” Some experts did not expect any agreement to be reached, considering the incoming Trump administration is expected to reject it.

Trump rounds out his Cabinet. The president-elect finalized his Cabinet nominations in a flurry of picks over the weekend, including pro-union Rep. Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon to run the Labor Department and Dr. Marty Makary, an opponent of vaccine mandates, to head the FDA. What are some themes from Trump’s Cabinet? Many have hosted shows on Fox News or frequently appeared on TV. Many hail from Florida, where Trump resides in Palm Beach. And it’s composed of an ideologically heterodox group of leaders, resembling more of a European-style coalition government than a traditional presidential cabinet, Axios reports. Now, the nominees will need to be confirmed by the Senate, though it’s very rare they are rejected.

Gladiator II and Wicked made bank this weekend. References to the two blockbusters “defying gravity” are getting out of hand. Let’s just call them what they are: popular. Together, the films represent the biggest pre-Thanksgiving, post-pandemic domestic box-office haul. But Wicked earned $114 million, short of an estimated $120 million, and Gladiator II brought in $55.5 million, short of its $60 million target. However, they’ll likely sell plenty of tickets over the Thanksgiving weekend, when Americans will be so ready to spend money to not talk to their relatives for five hours.—HVL

Magnus Carlsen isn’t participating in this year’s World Chess Championship, but the game’s biggest star and top player is making moves that can’t be ignored.

The best-of-14 title match between defending champion Ding Liren and teen phenom Gukesh Dommaraju that begins today remains a marquee event. But Carlsen, who vacated the crown two years ago after winning it five consecutive times, is looking to capitalize on the growing popularity of chess with a league that emphasizes unpredictability:

• Carlsen has received $12 million in VC backing for his startup, Freestyle Chess, which is launching a tour next year and has attracted 25 of the world’s best players ready for a new challenge.
• Matches will use the Fischer Random chess variant (popularized by US chess champ Bobby Fischer), which gives players 960 possible starting positions for pieces along the back row. That means more spontaneous decisions that show off different skills as opposed to players resorting to the same memorized sequences.

World No. 1 Carlsen and second-ranked Fabiano Caruana played one of these matches to promote the launch of the tour.

Taking advantage of the boom: Carlsen feels the timing is right for innovation, with people embracing chess in greater numbers since the pandemic. Chess.com has 190 million users, up from 50 million in January 2020, and the platform told NBC News that 1 in 10 Americans have an account.—DL

Here’s a stat from the Wall Street Journal that might give you brain freeze just from reading it—7-Eleven sold 153 million Slurpees in 2023. At $1 to $2 each, that’s a sweet chunk of change for a company that had ~$80 billion in revenue last year, and one of the things that make it so attractive for a takeover.

Alimentation Couche-Tard, which owns the Circle K convenience stores where strange things were afoot in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, bid $47 billion in October. Junro Ito, the son of the late founder of Seven & i (the Japanese parent company of 7-Eleven) and an executive there, submitted a higher bid this month in an attempt to take the company private and keep it in Japanese hands. The company said it is “committed to an objective review of all alternatives before us.”—DL

The only thing more stressful than Thanksgiving Day is the travel: As you brace for relatives ready to ask about your career, love life, and politics, take solace in the fact that the storms might prevent you from getting home. Forecasters are calling for rough weather across the US this week, with rain and/or snow on the radar for California, the Midwest, and the Great Lakes region. Factor in the expectations for record-breaking travel numbers, and it might be difficult to get to a bar for Drinksgiving, aka Blackout Wednesday, and pretend to be excited to see people from high school.

But if you do make it home, there’s no shortage of distractions on tap: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City begins at 8:30am ET and will include performances by Jennifer Hudson, Kylie Minogue, and Billy Porter. The NFL’s three-game slate has Bears-Lions in the early game, Giants-Cowboys in the middle game, and Dolphins-Packers in the late game. And because the NFL can’t let us live without it for one second, the Raiders and Chiefs will play on Amazon Prime on Black Friday, a perfect day for perusing our holiday gift guide.

Moana 2 hits theaters on Friday: Dwayne Johnson—whose recent movies Red One, Black Adam, and Jungle Cruise have all been flops—should fare better with the sequel to the 2016 animated Disney hit. The original made ~$640 million worldwide, and there are signs that point to enthusiasm for the return of these characters. According to Disney, Moana was the most-streamed movie across all streaming platforms in 2023 at more than 1 billion minutes watched.

Everything else…

• While markets are closed on Thanksgiving, they will be open until 1pm ET on Friday.
• Earnings on tap this week include Zoom on Monday and Macy’s and Best Buy on Tuesday.
• A judge will decide this week if Sean “Diddy” Combs will be granted bail.
• The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the monthly personal consumer expenditures price index (PCE), will be out on Wednesday.
• Michigan will take on Ohio State in this year’s edition of The Game on Saturday afternoon.
• Small Business Saturday is your chance to eschew that big corporation and support a local entrepreneur.