Donald Trump added another billionaire to his presidential transition team on Wednesday: Carl Icahn, the 80-year-old activist shareholder and long-time friend who once helped Trump keep control of his troubled New Jersey casinos.
Icahn will be a special adviser to the president-elect overseeing regulation, according to the transition team.
According to Forbes, Icahn has a net worth of $16.5bn adding his wealth to a team that already looks set to be the wealthiest White House team in history. Trump had considered him for the post of Treasury secretary but Icahn rejected the suggestions saying: “I’m not ever going to be secretary of anything in Washington.”
This appointment is not an official government position and Icahn will therefore not have to divest of his vast business holdings in order to comply with government-mandated conflict of interest rules.
The hedge fund manager has been one of Trump’s closest advisers and officially endorsed the president-elect in the summer of 2015. “Carl was with me from the beginning and with his being one of the world’s great businessmen, that was something I truly appreciated,” said Trump. Trump said Ichan’s “help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable”.
Icahn has been a persistent critic of government regulation, most recently “crazy regulations” at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He is a major investor in CVR Energy, an oil refiner, whose business he claims has been harmed by EPA regulations.
Trump consulted with Icahn before appointing Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general and another EPA critic, to head the agency.
“I am proud to serve President-elect Trump as a special adviser on regulatory reform,” said Icahn. “Under President Obama, America’s business owners have been crippled by over $1tn in new regulations and over 750bn hours dealing with paperwork. It’s time to break free of excessive regulation and let our entrepreneurs do what they do best: create jobs and support communities.”
The billionaire, who has a home near Trump’s Palm Beach base, Mar-A-Lago, started his career on Wall Street and has built a reputation as a fierce corporate raider.
Before Trump’s elevation, Icahn was best known for his often heated battles with executives at companies, including Apple, eBay, Dell and Time Warner. In 2015 he took on Apple’s chief executive officer Tim Cook, telling him the iPhone-maker was “dramatically undervalued”.
In the 1990s Icahn was a bondholder in Trump’s failing Taj Mahal casino in New Jersey. Trump was able to keep control if the casino despite failing to make payments to Icahn and other bondholders thanks in large part to advice given by another Trump appointee, Wilbur Ross, a billionaire bankruptcy expert and now Trump’s appointed commerce secretary.
