WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been granted an extension after failing to fully divest all his assets in compliance with an ethics agreement, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg.

The Office of Government Ethics, or OGE, gave Bessent until Dec. 15 to complete the divestiture of assets he identified ahead of his confirmation by the Senate earlier this year. A Treasury spokesperson said the date was mutually agreed upon by Bessent, the office of Treasury ethics and OGE.

Bessent said in a statement that those remaining assets represent 4% of his required divestitures and that he is working toward selling them before the end of the year. He said much of the remaining assets are farmland, “an inherently illiquid asset.”

“Serving President Trump and the American people is the honor of a lifetime,” Bessent said in an emailed statement. “I gladly divested from more than 90% of the assets I was required to sell before I even assumed office.”

“I am committed to full transparency and disclosure in my personal finances,” he said.

Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, was nominated by Trump in November 2024 and confirmed by the Senate on January 28. He disclosed assets worth at least $521 million in his personal financial disclosure, which was made public by OGE ahead of his confirmation hearing. The total value of his portfolio is potentially worth far more, as nominees list the value of their assets within broad ranges that top out at “over $50,000,000.”

The Treasury secretary’s failure to fully divest by an earlier deadline in April was cited in a letter sent Monday by OGE to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, signed by the agency’s Deputy Director for Compliance Dale Christopher. Christopher subsequently wrote to Crapo again Wednesday, setting out the December timeline and saying that Bessent will continue to recuse himself from matters that could involve the undivested assets.

‘Illiquid’ assets

A Treasury spokesperson said Bessent has already divested from 96% of the assets slated to be sold by the end of the year and that more than 90% of the $1 billion in total divestitures were made before January 20.

Treasury ethics officials said Bessent’s remaining undivested assets “are illiquid and are not readily marketable,” the second Christopher letter reads, in part. “They add that excluding the farmlands, the assets also have significant restrictions on who can acquire them.”

The letters were first reported by the New York Times.

Bessent has made reference in public appearances to the farmland he owns in North Dakota, sometimes referring to himself as a farmer or saying that he listens to farm radio.

In addition to the farmland, he has also disclosed stakes in a private equity fund, a privately held sparkling water company and a privately held clinical stage drug development company.

Bessent earlier in the day Wednesday pushed for a ban on lawmakers trading individual company stocks, saying the practice contributes to the sense that there is an “extractive class” of policymakers in Washington, D.C., who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers.

“I don’t think we have the perfect bill yet, but I am going to start pushing for a single-stock trading ban,” he said in a Bloomberg TV interview.

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(With assistance from Bill Allison.)

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