Kelly Loeffler, who led Bakkt from its founding in 2018 until her Senate appointment in 2019, has financial and political ties to Trump.
CNN has claimed that President-elect Donald Trump is getting ready to create a cabinet that would include a long-time supporter and a former CEO of a cryptocurrency company.
Donald Trump To Name Ex Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler
The source predicts that President Trump will appoint Kelly Loeffler, a former senator and the founding CEO of the highly troubled cryptocurrency startup Bakkt, to the position of secretary of the Department of Agriculture.
Kelly Loeffler will also serve as a co-chair of the group that will oversee Trump’s inaugural. On the other hand, Trump publicly announced his nomination of Brooke Rollins for the position of Secretary of Agriculture of the United States on Saturday afternoon.
She serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the America First Policy Institute, which has connections to Trump’s transition team.” There had been several discussions between Loeffler and the transition team regarding the position,” according to the news organization CNN.
However, Trump refrained from announcing his agriculture pick on Friday night, instead announcing a series of others, which raised doubts about whether Loeffler received the post in the end.
Kelly Loeffler served as the Chief Executive Officer of Bakkt from the company’s founding in 2018 until Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp appointed him to the Senate in 2019.
The cryptocurrency custody and trading platform recorded a net loss of $226 million on sales of $780 million in 2023, despite the fact that the revenue figure was significantly higher than its value of only $56 million in 2022.
Additionally, Loeffler’s husband, Jeff Sprecher, is the founder, chair, and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, also known as ICE. ICE is a financial services company that owns the New York Stock Exchange and founded and majority-owns Bakkt.
Loeffler’s financial ties to Trump extend beyond her fundraising efforts on behalf of the candidate.The Financial Times published a report earlier this week stating that Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the media business responsible for Truth Social, is currently in “advanced talks” to acquire Bakkt through an all-stock transaction.
If the deal goes through, the president-elect, who currently owns 53% of TMTG, would add another cryptocurrency investment to his portfolio. This suggests that Bakkt is contemplating the possibility of closing its cryptocurrency custody business, which holds a license in the state of New York.
Bakkt is also trying to develop a trading platform for institutional investors. During her brief time in the Senate, Loeffler frequently voted in accordance with the winner of the presidential election.
She boasted about her “100 percent Trump voting record” during her campaign for reelection and referred to herself as the most conservative senator in the United States.