It was over a late dinner in Davos that Scott Bessent turned the Chagos deal on its head.
Seated opposite Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, the pair chewed over the details of Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to hand the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius with disdain.
By the end of the meal, Mr Farage was convinced that the Prime Minister’s carefully constructed agreement no longer had Washington’s backing.
In the days that followed, Donald Trump turned against the deal and officials in London scrambled to convince him to back it.
That single interaction was perhaps the clearest sign yet that Mr Bessent, the US treasury secretary, had risen to become the administration’s most influential figure.
“Scott is the key in the future, the key for the next two years,” a source close to the administration said. “If you want your career to succeed, you peg yourself to Scott.”
Multiple sources close to the administration said Mr Bessent is seen as the proverbial adult in the room, outranking tariff hawks like Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, and Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary.
He is now viewed as Mr Trump’s most favoured cabinet member, ahead of Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state.
So how did the billionaire former hedge fund manager become a dominant force in the White House?
His mettle was put to the test as one of George Soros’s right-hand men when the billionaire bet against the pound on Black Wednesday.
Then in his early thirties Mr Bessent, who was known as the “quiet killer” for his Wall Street talent, helped net the Soros Fund some $1.5bn (£1.1bn) in one of the most famous trades in history.
Despite that association with the liberal billionaire, who is reviled by the Right, Mr Trump respects Mr Soros’s former economic adviser, once describing him as a “nice-looking guy and one of the most brilliant men on Wall Street”.
Indeed, when Wall Street executives grew frustrated with Mr Lutnick’s lack of economic knowledge in his public appearances in April, it was Mr Bessent who was wheeled in front of the camera to steady the waters.
And in the aftermath of the president’s “liberation day” tariff plan that wiped trillions of dollars off global stock markets, Mr Bessent’s stock really rose.
He publicly stuck to the administration’s script in defending the original tariffs policy. But in private conversations, he moved the president toward negotiating.
Huddled around the Resolute Desk on the afternoon of April 9, he helped draft the president’s 161-word statement announcing a 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs, triggering a historic correction in the markets.
It is perhaps no surprise then that he was sent to Davos for the World Economic Forum in January, days ahead of the president to lay the groundwork for the visit to the world’s most powerful chief executives.
“He was like the first wave at Normandy, and Trump came later like [General George S] Patton to strike at the heart of the Reich,” a source close to the president said.
But it may have been a fracas in the hallway of the West Wing that cemented his standing as a top power broker. He is said to have gone toe-to-toe with Elon Musk, the government’s former efficiency tsar, in a spectacular shouting match witnessed by the president.
Steve Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, recalled how Mr Bessent called the tech billionaire “a fraud” for not uncovering the $1trn (£732m) in wasteful spending he claimed he would.
Mr Musk would later be ousted from the White House in a public falling out with Mr Trump.
By the end of 2025, Mr Bessent had been applying his steady hand to the war in Ukraine, insiders say. He was among the key cabinet figures briefing the president on the possibilities of a financial deal with Russia before his one-on-one with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska.
Some of his creative incentives included opening up Alaska’s natural resources to Moscow and lifting some of the American sanctions on Russia’s aviation industry.
From tariffs to Ukraine, Mr Bessent has arguably been tested more than anyone else in Mr Trump’s cabinet. Yet he has remained in Mr Trump’s good graces through his measured restraint and a steady hand.
Subsequently, in the White House, the biggest influence is no longer the loudest voice in the room, but a man trusted to steady the waters.