Bessent Fires Back At Newsom After ‘Smug’ Jab

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent fired back at California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom after Newsom mocked him for being “smug.”

In a Fox Business interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bessent was discussing the Trump administration’s plan to limit or ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes to ease supply shortages and keep housing more affordable for individual buyers.

The administration has floated measures to restrict big institutional investors (such as private equity firms and large corporate landlords) from purchasing single-family homes, since these entities have been accused of buying up large numbers of houses and reducing supply for regular buyers.

Bessent was explaining that any guidance on this policy would need to distinguish between true small “mom and pop” investors and large investors.

He used an example of a hypothetical small investor, saying, “We’re going to give guidance, at some point, to see, what is a mom and pop. Someone, maybe your parents for their retirement have bought 5, 10, 12 homes. So we don’t want to push the moms and pops out; we just want to push everyone else out,” meaning larger, institutional buyers.

Newsom mocked Bessent, writing on X, “Could this smug man be more out of touch?”

Could this smug man be more out of touch? https://t.co/GUqqi5KoNB

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) January 20, 2026

Bessent fired back:

Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken, may be the only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris. He’s here this week with his billionaire sugar daddy, Alex Soros, and Davos is a perfect place for a man who, when everyone else is on lockdown, when he was having people arrested for going to church. … Shame on him. He is too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything. … Let me know if you need any further clarification.

California Governor Gavin Newsom called the Treasury Secretary smug. Today in Davos the Treasury Secretary responded.. and I have to quote this: “Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken, may be the only Californian who knows less about economics…

— Edward Lawrence (@EdwardLawrence) January 21, 2026

Newsom never lived a middle-class financial life as an adult; his career wasenabled by elite patronage, not grassroots entrepreneurship, as his father, William Newsom, a judge and political insider, was close friends with Gordon Getty, heir to the Getty oil fortune. Getty bankrolled Newsom’s first major business ventures, providing hundreds of thousands of dollars in startup capital.

Earlier this month, AP pointed out, “California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said the state faces a $2.9 billion budget deficit this year … It’s the fourth year in a row that the nation’s most populous state faces a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. This year’s shortfall comes despite growing revenues fueled by stock market gains and investments in artificial intelligence.”

Bessent came from a working family; his father was a real estate developer who experienced financial ups and downs. Bessent later earned a B.A. in political science from Yale University in 1984, then moved into finance.