These cabinet picks and others in Trump’s inner circle got their start at Philly-area universities

Pennsylvania was the center of the political universe during the 2024 presidential campaign.

And after winning the battleground state and the presidency, President-elect Donald Trump has kept some pieces of Pennsylvania around in his nominations for his cabinet and other high-level positions.

From his pick for secretary of commerce, who hails from Haverford College, to the Food and Drug Administration commissioner choice from Bucknell and Thomas Jefferson Universities, Trump has chosen individuals whose roots trace back to local schools. Their nominations await confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

On the campaign trail in the Keystone State, Trump would often try to emphasize his connection to Pennsylvania, including his time attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

If the nominations are confirmed, universities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey will have played a key part in forming the individuals who are poised to shape national policy. Their campuses served as fertile ground while they developed their future personalities, cultivated their conservative brand, or developed their entrepreneurial spirits.

Here’s how local universities have impacted potential future cabinet members and other important figures close to Trump.

Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host who is Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in politics from Princeton University in 2003 before receiving a master’s in public policy from Harvard University.

He was a company commander for the ROTC at Princeton and played varsity basketball, though he was considered “a recruiting afterthought.” But he did make two game winning three-point shots that allowed the university to beat Columbia, according to Princeton Alumni Weekly.

Hegseth participated in the Princeton Dueling Society, a short-lived club that offered a way to settle various disputes — including those related to “personal honor,” “the honor of a lady,” or “public slander” — with paintball guns. In one instance, Hegseth and a schoolmate, a Democrat, used silver paintball pistols to engage in what was dubbed an “ideological battle” by club leaders.

He wrote for and was the publisher of the Princeton Tory, a conservative political magazine, where he regularly touted the importance of conservative values, including the “traditional family unit.” As publisher, Hegseth was critical of the Organization of Women Leaders group on campus, and under his leadership, editors of the Tory published a note that mocked LGBTQ events on campus.

Hegseth is now facing assault allegations from a woman who says she was sexually assaulted in California in 2017 after he took her phone, blocked the door to a hotel room, and refused to let her leave, according to a police report made public in November, the Associated Press reported. Hegseth told reporters on Nov. 21 that the matter had been investigated and that he had been “completely cleared.”

Howard Lutnick, a close associate of Trump’s and cochair of his transition team, is the president-elect’s choice for secretary of commerce. He’s also an alumnus of Haverford College, where he studied economics, and the school’s largest donor. Lutnick is CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street financial services firm.

Lutnick’s financial impact on Haverford is evident around campus: The library is named after him; the Douglas B. Gardner Integrated Athletic Center is named after his best friend; and art exhibits can be found in the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery.

He came to the Main Line as a Division III tennis recruit after his mother had died of breast cancer roughly a year earlier, and while his father was battling lung cancer. The hospital taking care of his father accidentally gave him a high dose of chemotherapy medication meant for another patient, proving to be lethal. Lutnick’s time at Haverford almost ended a few days into his freshman year.

That was until Haverford’s president called and told Lutnick the college would pay his tuition, Lutnick told The Inquirer in October. The 63-year-old executive credits his time at Haverford with leading him to where he is now.

Even after graduating in 1983, Lutnick still remained in Haverford’s circle. He was a member and eventually the chair of the school’s board of managers. His donations and involvement in Haverford have been commended by former Haverford president Dan Weiss, who highlighted Lutnick’s “unwavering commitment to Haverford, his passion for supporting the college’s richly deserved reputation for excellence in so many ways, and his spectacular generosity.”

More recently, he has weighed in on how Haverford responded to demonstrations on campus protesting the Israel-Hamas war. Lutnick, a staunch supporter of Israel, thought the college could have done more to address protests on campus.

Before he became the world’s richest man, a close Trump ally, and a colead of the proposed nongovernment affiliated “Department of Government Efficiency” commission, Elon Musk graduated from Penn in 1997 with bachelor’s degrees in economics and physics.

He was a teaching assistant for a computer science class and a relatively lax resident adviser, where he met his girlfriend of two years (she eventually auctioned off various items related to Musk and their relationship), the Daily Pennsylvanian reported.

Musk was introverted, doling out card tricks, toying with his computer, playing video games, or observing instances of roaring campus excitement — like when Penn beat University of Michigan in basketball — instead of taking part. His classmates are not shocked by his large international profile, citing that Musk was already thinking about electric cars and expressed his ambitions to join the tech industry on the West Coast.

In recent months, Musk tried to burnish his Pennsylvania bona fides while on the campaign trail for Trump, trying to cater to voters in the battleground. He posted a picture of himself on X from his days at Penn: “Yup, I lived in Pennsylvania for 3 years. I am no stranger to the state,” he wrote.

And at a town hall in Delaware County in October, sponsored by his pro-Trump America PAC, Musk said: “I lived in the city for three years, I went to school here, I know the state — I’m not some just-arrived situation.”

Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and researcher, is Trump’s choice to lead the FDA. He graduated from Danville Area High School, in Danville, Pa., and from Bucknell and Thomas Jefferson Universities.

Little information is available about Makary’s time at Bucknell or Jefferson.

But his selection was applauded by conservatives and key players in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Makary rose to prominence for his controversial views on the COVID-19 pandemic. He questioned masking and was not opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine, but was concerned about booster vaccines in young children. He promoted the idea that mass infection from the virus would lead to greater widespread protection from COVID-19.

Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television doctor and unsuccessful 2022 GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate, was chosen by Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Oz received his M.D. from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and an MBA from the Wharton School in 1986 and also has a degree from Harvard. But he rarely mentioned his connection to the Pennsylvania Ivy League on the 2022 campaign trail for U.S. Senate, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported, except to use his time living in West Philly as a student to comment on crime rates in Philadelphia.

Former classmates of Oz said he was typically well-liked at Penn and was hardworking and smart. But those classmates also expressed skepticism about some of his controversial and often unfounded positions on medicine. This includes Oz’s support for hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, which, according to the Mayo Clinic, is an ineffective antidote.

Prior to his Senate campaign, he maintained his relationship with Penn, returning to speak at a graduation ceremony or speak to students about wellness.