What Donald Trump's Cabinet might look like

Donald Trump's transition team is already evaluating potential candidates for his administration when he returns to the White House in January.

On Thursday, he made the first announcement, naming his campaign manager Susan Summerall Wiles as his White House chief of staff.

Many figures who served under Trump in his first term do not plan to return, although a number of loyalists are rumored to be returning.

But America's president-elect is now surrounded by new players who could fill out his Cabinet, serve in the White House and play a key role in the rest of the government.

Here's a look at some of the names floating around for top jobs.

The past two years have been a difficult journey for the nephew of former President John F Kennedy.

An environmental lawyer by trade, he ran for president as a Democrat, with most of his family speaking out against his anti-vaccination and conspiracy theories as they supported the re-election of Joe Biden.

He then switched to running as an independent candidate but, failing to gain ground amid a series of controversies, left the race and endorsed Trump.

In the last two months of the 2024 election cycle, he led Trump's campaign plan called “Make America Healthy Again”.

Trump has recently promised to play a bigger role in public health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Safety Administration (FDA).

RFK Jr, as he is known, has recently revealed that he will push to remove fluoride from drinking water because it is “a terrible way to introduce it into our systems” – although this has been disputed by other experts.

And in an interview with NBC News, Kennedy rejected the notion that he is “anti-vaccination”, saying he would not “take away anyone's vaccines” but instead would give them the “best information” to make their own choices.

Instead of an official cabinet position, Kennedy used the interview to suggest that he could take on a broader role within the White House.

Trump's landslide victory over Kamala Harris was credited to the wisdom of campaign co-chairs Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who he called a “snow maiden” in his victory speech on Wednesday.

He it has since been confirmed that he is still the chief of staff under Trump's second administration — Trump's first confirmed appointment for a second term — making her the first woman to hold the position.

Wiles, who Trump says “likes to stay in the background”, is considered one of the most feared and respected political figures in the country.

Within a year of his political career, he worked on Ronald Reagan's successful 1980 presidential campaign and later became his White House editor.

In 2010, he turned Rick Scott, a former businessman with little political experience, into governor of Florida in just seven months. Scott is now a US senator.

Wiles met with Trump during the 2015 Republican presidential primary and co-chaired his campaign in Florida, then considered a swing state. Trump went on to beat Hillary Clinton there in 2016.

Wiles has been praised by Republicans for his ability to command respect and check the big egos of those in the presidential race, which could help him impose a sense of order that none of his four previous administrations have.

The world's richest man announced his support for the former president earlier this year, although he said in 2022 that “it's time for Trump to hang up his hat and go off into the sun”.

The tech billionaire has since emerged as one of Trump's most visible and well-known supporters and donated more than $119m (£91.6m) this election cycle to America PAC – the political committee he created to support the former president.

Musk, head of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of social media platform X, also launched a voter registration drive that included $1m (£771,000) given to a random constituency voter each day at the end of the campaign.

Since registering as a Republican ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Musk has been outspoken on issues including illegal immigration and transgender rights.

Both Musk and Trump are focused on the idea that he will lead a new “Department of Government Operations”, where he will cut costs, change regulations and streamline what they call “a big, oppressive state”.

The acronym for the potential agency – DOGE – is a playful reference to the “meme-coin” cryptocurrency that Musk has previously promoted.

The former Kansas congressman served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then secretary of state during Trump's first administration.

A foreign policy hawk and staunch supporter of Israel, he played a prominent role in moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was among the key players in the implementation of the Abraham Accords, which reformed relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

He has remained a staunch defender of his boss, joking that there will be a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration” amid Trump's false allegations of election fraud in late 2020.

He has been considered a leading contender for the role of defense secretary, along with Michael Waltz, a Florida legislator and military veteran who sits on the armed services committee in the US House of Representatives.

Richard Grenell served as Trump's ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and his acting director of national intelligence.

The Republican was also heavily involved in Trump's efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, in the state of Nevada.

Trump praises Grenell's loyalty and describes him as “my messenger”.

In September, he sat in on Trump's private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The former president has often said he would end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” of taking office and Grenell has advocated the creation of an independent region in eastern Ukraine as a way to achieve that – an idea seen as unacceptable by Kyiv.

He is considered a candidate for secretary of state or national security adviser, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

Trump's 2024 campaign press secretary previously worked in his White House press office, as an assistant press secretary.

The 27-year-old Gen-Zer made a bid to become the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress in 2022, to represent a seat in her home state of New Hampshire, but failed.

He is expected to become White House press secretary – the most public-facing position in the cabinet.

Tom Homan served as acting director of US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the Trump administration, where he was a proponent of separating migrant children from their parents as a way to prevent illegal crossings.

At the time, he made headlines for saying that politicians who support sanctuary city policies should be charged with crimes. He later resigned from his position on Ice in 2018, midway through Trump's tenure.

He has since emerged as a key figure in the development of Trump's mass deportation plan, and has been tapped as a possible choice to run the Department of Homeland Security.

Homan spoke about the deportation plan last month in an interview with the BBC's US counterpart CBS News, saying it “will not be – a neighborhood sweep”.

“They're going to be arrested. We'll know who we're going to arrest, when we're likely to find them based on a lot of, you know, investigative processes,” he said.