The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 440 points to a record close on Monday after President-elect Donald Trumps pick for Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, laid out his priorities including tax cuts.

In his first interview as Treasury nominee with The Wall Street Journal, Bessent said he will also focus on imposing tariffs, cutting spending and keeping the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency.

The Dow closed up 1% at 44,736.57, while the S&P 500 gained 0.3% and hit an intraday record.

The longtime hedge fund manager said he is focused on making Trumps 2017 tax cuts permanent, as well as eliminating taxes on tips, social security benefits and overtime pay.

Bessent himself is a very prominent investor and has a stellar track record which makes him a great choice, and the markets are responding to the excitement about how they think he will handle fiscal policy and interest rates, Ted Jenkin, co-founder and business consultant at oXYGen Financial, told The Post. 

On Friday, Trump nominated the seasoned hedge fund manager, who has studied economic history for around 40 years, as US Treasury Secretary.

That’s despite protests from Elon Musk, who donated millions to Trump campaign efforts and rallied in swing states on the president-elects behalf. Musk had dogged Bessent as a business-as-usual choice, and threw his support behind Howard Lutnick, who Trump ended up nominating to head the Commerce Department instead.

Investors and Wall Street bigwigs have largely applauded the nomination of Bessent, who worked at George Soros firm before starting his own, because he is seen as the moderate choice, Mahoney Asset Management CEO Ken Mahoney said.

Trump has ruffled feathers with some of his controversial nominations, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the health department, former Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general and former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense.

Disruption is the goal when it comes to ripping DEI out of government, or getting the politics out of the Justice Department, but not when managing our banking system or world financial markets, Kenin Spivak, chief executive at SMI Group, told The Post. Bessent is an experienced, steady, capable expert in all aspects of the department he has been chosen to lead.

Spivak said investors view Bessent as the wise choice and expect him to advise Trump to use restraint when implementing some of his economic policies.

The president-elect has pushed for massive tariffs of 10% on all imports and 60% on goods from China. Economists have warned the outsize tariffs could reheat inflation.

Bessent, meanwhile, had viewed tariffs as a negotiating tool, saying earlier this year that the tariff gun will always be loaded and on the table but rarely discharged. 

[Bessent] talked about gradual tariff changes, which had been a fear and a talking point of Trump adversaries, Mahoney told The Post. This ideology of massaging in tariffs and seeing how things go makes much more sense.

Mahoney said less intense tariffs could help foreign policy which was a mess in every way with the Biden administration by encouraging fair trade practices while still gaining leverage over other countries.

Another one of Bessents popular proposals is what he calls the 3-3-3 rule, inspired by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who revitalized Japans economy with a threefold policy. Bessents three goals are to slash the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2028, boost GDP growth by 3% through deregulation and produce an additional 3 million barrels of oil per day, according to the Journal.

We also like to hear his policies around reducing the budget deficit and getting that under control, as we know there is a massive debt and spending problem within the government, Mahoney said. He also wants to increase oil productionso it is possible lower energy costs balance out the possible inflationary effects of tariffs.

CNN top brass is considering naming primetime anchor Kaitlan Collins to the role of chief White House correspondent as the left-leaning network grapples with how to cover the incoming Trump administration, according to a report.

Collins, who hosts “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” weekdays at 9 pm, would relocate with her New York-based show to Washington, D.C., at least part of the time, Semafor reported Sunday.

The move, which has not yet been finalized, is currently being discussed by CNN CEO Mark Thompson and his lieutenants in the hope that it would allow Collins to fully tap into her network of sourcing within Trump’s White House.

However, another veteran TV source who has worked at rival networks speculated that said CNN — which is cutting its own budget — will move Collins into the White House role and drop her as a primetime anchor. 

“Her viewership numbers are bad,” the source said, noting that Collins is paid a a reported $3 million a year. “They probably want to move her back to D.C. and get her out of the anchor chair.”

Collins’ show, which launched on July 10, 2023, averaged 629,00 total viewers its first year. But since the election earlier this month, the program’s ratings have hovered between 565,000 to 430,000 range, according to Nielsen data.

CNN has been looking for ways to keep costs down while Thompson looks to amp up the network’s digital presence and increase its ratings. In recent months, Chris Wallace, who was making a reported $7 million a year, was informed that his poorly-rated shows would be canceled.

Wallace opted to leave after his agent was told he could stay on as an analyst if he took a massive pay cut. 

The network also recently denied raises to Jake Tapper, who makes a reported $7 million, and to Wolf Blitzer, who is believed to make roughly $3 million

CNN did not return requests for comment.

The reporter covered Trump’s first administration for CNN, as well as for her previous employer, conservative news site the Daily Caller.

In recent weeks, Collins has been reporting from West Palm Beach, Fla., near the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago compound, hosting her show from a set up nearby and breaking news about the president’s transition efforts.

The 32-year-old star has climbed the ranks at the struggling news network, moving from the role of White House reporter to co-host of “CNN This Morning,” the ill-fated morning show co-hosted by Don Lemon and Poppy Harlow, both of whom were axed.

Collins managed to sidestep that disaster and find a plum gig, anchoring the network’s important 9 pm-hour, and cementing herself as CNN’s “It girl.”

Even with her Trump connections, Collins could find it hard to walk a tightrope at CNN, which has grappled with how to cover the incoming president.

Thompson said in an internal meeting with staffers earlier this month that he did not want the network to default to leaning into too much anti-Trump coverage ahead of another four years of Trump in power, the Status newsletter first reported.

He also stressed that there would be a plethora of important stories outside of the D.C. bubble that should not be pushed aside and that the network should strike a balance.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink received approval to launch a new feasibility trial using its brain implant and an investigational assistive robotic arm, the brain-chip startup said in a post on X on Monday.

Neuralink is conducting its PRIME study, aimed at evaluating the safety of its wireless brain-computer interface and surgical robot. It is assessing the initial effect of the implant in patients with quadriplegia, a form of paralysis, to control external devices with their thoughts.

The company plans to cross-enroll participants in the feasibility study from the ongoing PRIME trial, it said in a post on social media platform X.

The Food and Drug Administration and Neuralink did not immediately respond to requests for details on the feasibility study.

Last week, the company received approval from regulator Health Canada to launch a trial of its device in Canada. Canadian neurosurgeons in partnership with the startup have regulatory approval to recruit six patients with paralysis in the study.

In the United States, Neuralink has already implanted the device in two patients. It has allowed the first patient to play video games, browse the internet, post on social media and move a cursor on his laptop.

The company has said its device is working well in the second trial patient, who has been using it to play video games and learn how to design 3D objects.