United States President-elect Donald Trump has wasted little time in choosing officials to take up key roles in his incoming administration.
Just days after his resounding election victory on November 5, Trump has named a handful of advisers and political allies to serve in various posts, including White House chief of staff.
Trump’s early appointments have also touched on important portfolios – such as immigration and foreign policy – that the Republican made a focal point of his 2024 re-election campaign.
Here’s a look at some of the top appointees he has chosen so far:
Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff
Wiles was a senior adviser in Trump’s 2024 election campaign and a trusted member of his team.
Seen by many as the architect of his political comeback, the 67-year-old worked on former President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign.
Wiles also has a background in Florida politics: She helped Ron DeSantis win his first race for the state’s governor before she aided Trump to defeat DeSantis in the 2024 Republican primary.
“Susie Wiles just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history,” Trump said in a statement on November 7 announcing he had chosen her as his chief of staff.
“Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected. Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again.”
Amy Koch, a Republican strategist, told Al Jazeera that Wiles is also someone who is “loyal” to the president-elect, which is “something he’s looking for” in his cabinet picks.
“She ran a campaign where he was able to sort of tamp down – sometimes – some of [Trump’s] rhetoric. She was able to direct his energies,” Koch said.
Tom Homan, ‘border czar’
Trump named Homan, 62, as his “border czar” in a post on his Truth Social website late on Sunday, saying that “there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders”.
The president-elect also said that Homan – who served in Trump’s first administration as the former head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – would be in charge of carrying out “all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to the Country of Origin”.
Trump has promised to carry out the “largest deportation operation” in US history – a pledge that has drawn widespread concern from migrant and asylum seeker rights advocates.
Homan has insisted that such a massive undertaking would be humane although he suggested at a July conference in Washington, DC, that he would be willing to “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen”.
Homan also has been widely criticised for defending Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, which led to the separation of thousands of parents and children seeking asylum at the border.
In an interview with CBS News programme 60 Minutes in late October, shortly before Trump won the election, Homan was asked if there was a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families.
He replied: “Of course there is. Families can be deported together.”
Elise Stefanik, US ambassador to the United Nations
Stefanik, 40, has been one of Trump’s staunchest defenders in the US Congress.
She has served as a Republican congresswoman for 10 years and took over as House Republican Conference chair in 2021 after the party removed Liz Cheney for criticising Trump over his false 2020 election fraud claims.
Stefanik was a central figure in a recent push in Congress to address claims of anti-Semitism on US university campuses – something critics say was actually an effort to clamp down on criticism of Israel as it waged war on the Gaza Strip.
If confirmed, Stefanik will be going to the UN at a time of heightened anxiety over the incoming Trump administration’s stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine, and as Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon continues to fuel fears of wider unrest in the Middle East.
Reporting from Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna noted that Stefanik “is known as a very strong opponent of the United Nations”.
“She is an avowed supporter of Israel. That is going to cause some ructions within the world body and certainly test US relations with its international partners,” he said.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Stefanik “will be an incredible Ambassador to the United Nations, delivering Peace through Strength and America First National Security policies!”
Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy
While Trump has not formally announced Miller’s appointment, Vice President-elect JD Vance appeared to confirm the move in a post on X.
“This is another fantastic pick by the president,” Vance wrote about Miller being named to the post.
Miller, 39, is a hardline, anti-immigration Trump adviser who helped craft some of the former president’s most high-profile policies during his first term, such as the separation of migrant families.
A former aide to Mike Pence, who served as Trump’s vice president from 2017 to 2021, previously described the Trump administration’s use of a public health measure to effectively seal the US’s southern border with Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic as “a Stephen Miller special”.
Under the policy, known as Title 42, thousands of migrants and asylum seekers were turned away to dangerous Mexican border towns where they faced widespread violence, including rape, murder and kidnappings.
Miller has championed Trump’s 2024 pledge to carry out mass deportations.
He also frequently uses extreme rhetoric to attack migrants, telling a Trump campaign rally in New York last month that “America is for Americans and Americans only”.
Lee Zeldin, head of Environmental Protection Agency
Zeldin does not have any environmental experience but he has been a loyal supporter of the president-elect.
A former US congressman from New York, the 44-year-old has pledged to support Trump’s plan to deregulate approvals of energy extraction and cut down on regulatory red tape.
In a post on X, Zeldin said it was an honour to take up the post.
“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalise our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” he wrote. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”
During his campaign, Trump criticised the Biden government’s support for electric vehicles and restrictions on oil and gas drilling. He also often used the phrase “drill baby drill” to describe his new administration’s approach to petroleum exploration.
Zeldin “will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way”, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
Mike Waltz, national security adviser
Trump officially named the Florida congressman to the highly influential post on Tuesday, touting Waltz’s nearly three decades in the US military, including as a Green Beret.
“Mike retired as a Colonel, and is a nationally recognized leader in National Security, a bestselling author, and an expert on the threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, and global terrorism,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
While Trump during his re-election campaign slammed former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney as a “radical war hawk” and pledged to pursue an “America First” foreign policy, observers note that Waltz previously served as former US Vice President Dick Cheney’s “counterterrorism” adviser.
Waltz, a 50-year-old Trump loyalist and leading critic of Beijing, has criticised Chinese activity in the Asia Pacific and has voiced the need for the US to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.
In the national security adviser post, which does not require Senate confirmation, Waltz will be responsible for briefing Trump on key national security issues and coordinating with different agencies.
While slamming the Biden administration for a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Waltz has publicly praised Trump’s foreign policy views.
Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and one-time presidential candidate, has long been a staunch supporter of Israel and defended the Israeli government’s control over the occupied Palestinian territory.
“He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” Trump wrote on Tuesday in announcing the appointment.
Huckabee has travelled to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law, multiple times over the course of his political career.
In 2017, during a visit to Maale Adumim, a large settlement near Jerusalem, he said: “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
A year later, Huckabee travelled to Efrat – an Israeli settlement located between Bethlehem and Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank – and laid bricks at a new construction site. He described the settlement as a “bridge to peace”, Israeli media reported at the time.
A few years earlier, during his campaign for president, Huckabee – an Evangelical Christian – also said he did not believe the West Bank was being occupied by Israel.
“I think it is very important that as Americans, we show support for Israelis in their capacity to build their neighbourhoods in their own country,” he said during a visit to Shiloh, another illegal settlement north of Ramallah.
John Ratcliffe, CIA director
A close Trump ally, Ratcliffe served as director of national intelligence at the end of the Republican’s first term as president.
In that role, Ratcliffe was accused by Democrats and former intelligence officials of declassifying intelligence for use by Trump and his Republican allies to attack political opponents, including Biden. Ratcliffe’s office denied that charge.
News outlets also reported on concerns that Ratcliffe – a former member of the House of Representatives and US attorney for Texas – exaggerated his “counterterrorism” experience as a federal prosecutor in Texas.
In 2019, Ratcliffe emerged as an ardent defender of Trump during the House of Representatives’ first impeachment proceedings against him. He was a member of the then-president’s impeachment advisory team and strenuously questioned witnesses during the impeachment hearings.
In a statement on Tuesday, Trump hailed Ratcliffe – whose appointment as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must be confirmed by the Senate – as someone who “has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public”.
“I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation’s highest Intelligence positions,” Trump added.
Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Trump named the Republican governor of South Dakota as the next head of the DHS, the government agency that oversees US borders, among other things.
“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, noting that Noem was the first US governor to send National Guard troops to help Texas block migrants and asylum seekers from entering the country.
“She will work closely with ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan to secure the Border, and will guarantee that our American Homeland is secure from our adversaries,” Trump said.
Noem, 52, was once seen as a possible running mate for Trump.
She rose to national prominence after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also made headlines earlier this year after she admitted in her memoir that she shot and killed her dog.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Department of Government Efficiency
Trump appointed Musk, the Tesla CEO and billionaire, and Ramaswamy, his former Republican presidential challenger, to lead a new initiative seeking to help the administration “dismantle Government Bureaucracy”.
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in a statement shared by Trump on Truth Social.
The acronym of the new department – DOGE – coincides with the name of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin which Musk promotes.
Trump said the department would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government” while partnering with the White House and Office of Management & Budget “to drive large scale structural reform”.
Musk gave millions of dollars to support Trump’s presidential campaign and made public appearances with him. Trump had said he would offer Musk, the world’s richest person, a role in his administration.
Pete Hegseth, secretary of defence
Trump announced he was nominating Hegseth as Pentagon chief on Tuesday.
The 44-year-old is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends Weekend and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show.
Hegseth is also the author of The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, published earlier this year, and has been outspoken about rooting out what he has called “woke-ness” in the military.
He was an infantry captain in the Army National Guard and served overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was formerly head of Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, and he unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in Minnesota in 2012.
He also championed the case of four former Blackwater contractors convicted in a 2007 shooting rampage in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians. They were pardoned by Trump in one of his final acts in office.
“Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” Trump wrote in announcing the pick. “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.”