US Treasury's No. 2, Faulkender, leaving after less than 5 months

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender is leaving the government after less than five months, the Treasury Department said on Friday, another abrupt departure by a senior official in the young Trump administration.

Faulkender is the second Senate-confirmed official to leave the department this month, following IRS Commissioner Billy Long, who later said he was being tapped as ambassador to Iceland.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thanked Faulkender for his work at the department but gave no reason for his departure.

"Since January, he has played a critical role in overseeing the U.S. Department of the Treasury's operations and executing on President Trump's bold economic agenda," Bessent said in a statement. "His important work has supported the passage of the historic One Big Beautiful Bill and GENIUS Act, and the leveling of sanctions against our adversaries."

Faulkender had joined Trump in publicly bashing Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates more quickly and touting the administration's economic policies, but had clashed with Bessent on recent occasions, a person familiar with the matter said.

Faulkender, who was close to Steven Mnuchin, Trump's Treasury chief during his first term, has overseen Treasury's operations with a broad policy portfolio covering tax, international finance, sanctions and financial regulation.

Trump last week blasted Mnuchin on his Truth Social media platform for persuading him to appoint Powell to head the Fed.

Trump nominated Faulkender, a University of Maryland finance professor, in December to serve as the No. 2 official at Treasury, where he had been assistant secretary of economic policy during Trump's first term. He was confirmed by the Senate for the role on March 26.

At the end of the first Trump administration, Faulkender had returned to the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, where he has been a finance professor since 2008.

He had also served as the chief economist for two years at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has helped shape Trump's policy agenda.