Elaine Lan Chao (born March 26, 1953) is an American businesswoman and former government official. A member of the Republican Party, she served as the 18th

United States secretary of transportation The United States secretary of transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to transportation. The secre ...

in the

Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...

from 2017 to 2021, and as the 24th

United States secretary of labor The United States Secretary of Labor is a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and as the head of the United States Department of Labor, controls the department, and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all ot ...

in the

George W. Bush administration George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic ...

from 2001 to 2009. Chao was the first

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. Born in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, Chao immigrated to the United States when she was eight years old. Her father founded the

Foremost Group Foremost Group is a privately held American shipping company, headquartered in New York City. It operates globally, chartering vessels to companies in the dry bulk shipping industry. Its clients include Bunge (St. Louis, MO), Cargill (Minnetonka ...

, which eventually became a major shipping corporation. Chao was raised on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, and subsequently received degrees from

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

and

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

. She worked for a number of financial institutions before being appointed to several senior positions in the Department of Transportation under Presidents

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

and

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

, including Chair of the

Federal Maritime Commission The United States Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) is an independent federal agency based in Washington, D.C. that is responsible for the regulation of oceanborne international transportation of the U.S. It is chaired by Daniel B. Maffei. His ...

(1988–1989) and

Deputy Secretary of Transportation The deputy secretary of transportation advises and assists the secretary of transportation in the supervision and direction of the Department of Transportation (DOT). The deputy secretary would succeed the secretary in his or her absence, sicknes ...

(1989–1991). She served as Director of the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...

from 1991 to 1992 and as president of the

United Way of America United Way is an international network of over 1,800 local nonprofit fundraising affiliates. United Way was the largest nonprofit organization in the United States by donations from the public, prior to 2016. United Way organizations raise funds ...

from 1993 to 1996. While not in government, Chao has served on several corporate

boards of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

and worked for

The Heritage Foundation The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that is primarily geared toward public policy. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presiden ...

and the

Hudson Institute The Hudson Institute is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporat ...

, two conservative think-tanks. Chao is married to

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

Mitch McConnell Addison Mitchell McConnell III (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky and the Senate minority leader since 2021. Currently in his seventh term, McConne ...

. During her tenure as Transportation Secretary in the Trump administration, the Transportation Department's inspector general wrote a report with numerous instances where Chao used her office to promote her family's shipping business.

Early life and education

Elaine Chao was born in

, on March 26, 1953, and immigrated to the United States when she was eight years old. She is the eldest of six daughters of

Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Ruth Mulan Chu Chao (; March 19, 1930 – August 2, 2007) was the matriarch of a Chinese-American philanthropic family. In 2016, Harvard Business School dedicated the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center in her honor, making it the first building at the ...

, a historian, and James S. C. Chao, who began his career as a

merchant mariner A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

and in 1964 founded the shipping company Foremost Maritime Corporation in New York City which developed into the

. In 1961, Elaine, along with her mother and two younger sisters, came to the United States on a 37-day freight ship journey. Her father had arrived in New York three years earlier after receiving a scholarship. Chao attended Tsai Hsing Elementary School in Taiwan for

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...

and first grade. She attended

Syosset High School Syosset High School (SHS) is a public high school located in Syosset, New York, United States, in Nassau County, on Long Island. It serves as the public high school for residents of the Syosset Central School District. As of 2012, the news mag ...

Syosset, New York Syosset (also known as Little East Woods or Locust Grove) is a hamlet and census-designated place in the Town of Oyster Bay, in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 19,259 at the 202 ...

, in Nassau County on

and was

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

as a U.S. citizen at the age of 19. Chao received a Bachelor of Arts degree in

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

from

South Hadley, Massachusetts South Hadley (, ) is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 18,150 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. South Hadley is home to Mount Holyoke Colleg ...

, in 1975. In the second semester of her junior year, she studied money and banking at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

. She received an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

degree from

in 1979.

Career

Early career

Before entering public service, Chao was vice president for syndications at

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

Capital Markets Group in San Francisco, and she was an International Banker at

Citicorp Citigroup Inc. or Citi (stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomer ...

in New York for four years from 1979 to 1983. She was granted a

White House Fellowship The White House Fellows program is a federal fellowship program established via Executive Order by President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1964, based upon a suggestion from John W. Gardner, then the president of Carnegie Corp ...

in 1983 during the

Reagan Administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over D ...

and was then Vice President, Syndications at

from 1984 to 1986. Bush Contact Sheet P19344 (cropped)

In 1986, Chao became Deputy Administrator of the

Maritime Administration Maritime administrations, or flag state administrations, are the executive arms/state bodies of each government responsible for carrying out the shipping responsibilities of the state, and are tasked to administer national shipping and boating issue ...

in the

U.S. Department of Transportation The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States and ...

. From 1988 to 1989, she served as Chairwoman of the

. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated Chao to be Deputy Secretary of Transportation; she served from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1992, she was the Director of the Peace Corps. She was the first

Asian Pacific American Asian/Pacific American (APA) or Asian/Pacific Islander (API) or Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) or Asian American and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) is a term sometimes used in the United States when including both Asian a ...

to serve in any of these positions. She expanded the Peace Corps's presence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia by establishing the first Peace Corps programs in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, and the newly independent states of the former

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Between Bush administrations

Following her service in President George H.W. Bush's administration, Chao worked for three years from 1993 to 1996 as president and CEO of United Way of America. She is credited with returning credibility and public trust to the organization after a financial mismanagement scandal involving former president

William Aramony William J. Aramony (July 27, 1927 – November 11, 2011) was CEO of United Way of America for more than twenty years and helped build the organization into the largest charity in the United States. He retired in 1992 amid criminal charges of fra ...

. From 1996 until her appointment as Secretary of Labor, Chao was a Distinguished Fellow with The Heritage Foundation, a

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

She was also a board member of the

Independent Women's Forum The Independent Women's Forum (IWF) is a conservative American non-profit organization focused on economic policy issues of concern to women. She returned to the Heritage Foundation after leaving the government in January 2009.

U.S. Secretary of Labor (2001–2009)

Chao was the only cabinet member in the

to serve for the entirety of his eight years. She was also the longest-serving Secretary of Labor since

Frances Perkins Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965) was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the 4th United States secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of th ...

, who served from 1933 to 1945 under President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

. ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' wrote towards the end of Chao's tenure as Labor Secretary that the Labor Department under her was "widely criticized for walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety".

Union disclosure requirements

In 2002, a major West Coast ports dispute costing the U.S. economy nearly $1billion daily was resolved when the Bush administration obtained a national emergency

injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...

against both the employers and the union under the

Taft–Hartley Act The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. It was enacted by the 80th United States Congress over the veto of Preside ...

for the first time since 1971. Led by Chao, in 2003, for the first time in more than 40 years, the Department updated the labor union financial disclosure regulations under the

Landrum–Griffin Act The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (also "LMRDA" or the Landrum–Griffin Act), is a US labor law that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers. Background After enactment ...

of 1959, which created more extensive disclosure requirements for union-sponsored pension plans and other trusts to prevent embezzlement or other financial mismanagement. In 2004, the Department issued revisions of the white-collar overtime regulations under the

Fair Labor Standards Act The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "oppres ...

Government Accountability Office reports

After analyzing 70,000 closed case files from 2005 to 2007, the

Government Accountability Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal govern ...

reported that the Department's

Wage and Hour Division The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the United States Department of Labor is the federal office responsible for enforcing federal labor laws. The Division was formed with the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The Wage and Hour m ...

(WHD) inadequately investigated complaints from low- and

minimum-wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...

workers alleging that employers failed to pay the

federal minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...

, required overtime, and failed to issue a last paycheck. A 2008

report noted that the Labor Department gave Congress inaccurate numbers which understated the expense of contracting out its employees' work to private firms during Chao's tenure.

Mining regulation

A 2007 report by the department's

Office of Inspector General In the United States, Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or unlawful operations within their parent agency. Such offices are attached to ma ...

(OIG) found that mine safety regulators did not conduct federally required inspections at more than one in seven of the country's 731 underground coal mines in 2006, and that the number of worker deaths in mining accidents more than doubled to 47 in that year. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) "missed 147 inspections at 107 mines employing a total of 7,500 workers". A separate audit of 21 inspection reports determined that documents were missing, misdated, or mislabeled and that "MSHA officials misstated inspection statistics in reports and on the agency's Web site." Mining disasters in 2006 and 2007 included West Virginia's Sago Mine explosion, which killed 12 in January 2006; West Virginia's Alma Mine fire, which killed two in January 2006; the Darby Mine No.1 explosion in Kentucky, where five miners died in May 2006; and the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse in Utah, which killed six workers and three rescuers in August 2007. In 2010, the widows of the two men killed in the Alma Mine fire sued the federal government for wrongful death, citing lack of inspections, failure to act against violations, and conflicts of interest. "MSHA's review of the fire acknowledged significant lapses by inspectors, supervisors and district managers" at the mine but the agency did not admit liability for the negligent inspections. In 2013, the appeals court ruled that MSHA can be held liable "when a negligent inspection results in the wrongful death of a coal miner". The suit was settled in 2014, with MSHA agreeing to pay the two widows $500,000 each and to allow them to see OIG interviews pertaining to the fire; MSHA also agreed to develop a training course on preventing fires in underground mines.

Workplace safety

The Labor Department was widely criticized for "walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety". A 2009 internal audit appraising an

Occupational Safety and Health Administration The Occupational Safety and Health Administration'' (OSHA ) is a large regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. Congress established the agenc ...

(OSHA) initiative focusing on problematic workplaces for the past six years stated that employees had failed to gather needed data, conducted uneven inspections and enforcement, and failed to discern repeat fatalities because records misspelled the companies' names or failed to notice when two subsidiaries with the same owner were involved; it also noted that after rules changes in January 2008 the number of targeted companies declined by almost half.

Post-Bush administration (2009–2017)

In 2009, Chao resumed her previous role as a Distinguished Fellow at

, and she contributed to

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

and other media outlets. She also served as a director on a number of corporate and non-profit boards, including the Institute of Politics at the

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...

New York–Presbyterian Hospital The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is a nonprofit academic medical center in New York City affiliated with two Ivy League medical schools, Cornell University and Columbia University. The hospital comprises seven distinct campuses located in the New Y ...

News Corp News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The second incarnation of the News Corporation (1980–2013), original News Corporation, it was formed ...

Dole Food Company Dole plc (previously named Dole Food Company, Standard Fruit Company) is an Irish agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. The company is among the world's largest producers of fruit and vegetables, operating wit ...

, and

Protective Life Corporation Protective Life Corporation is a financial service holding company in Birmingham, Alabama.https://protective.newshq.businesswire.com/sites/protective.newshq.businesswire.com/files/press_kit/file/We_Are_Protective_Life_-_Company_Overview_and_Financ ...

. According to financial disclosure forms, Chao was slated to receive $1–5million as compensation for her service on the board of Wells Fargo. In June 2011, she was awarded the

Woodrow Wilson Award Woodrow Wilson Awards are given out in multiple countries each year by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution to individuals in both the public sphere and business who have shown an outstanding commitm ...

for Public Service. In January 2015, she resigned from the board of

Bloomberg Philanthropies Bloomberg Philanthropies is a philanthropic organization that encompasses all of the charitable giving of founder Michael R. Bloomberg. Headquartered in New York City, Bloomberg Philanthropies focuses its resources on five areas: the environmen ...

, which she had joined in 2012, because of its plans to significantly increase support for the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...

's "

Beyond Coal The Beyond Coal movement is a campaign by environmental group the Sierra Club to promote renewable energy instead of coal. Their primary objective is to close coal power plants in the United States, including at least one-third of the country's m ...

" initiative. In February 2017, it was reported by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

that Chao had addressed organizations linked to the

People's Mujahedin of Iran The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) or Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) ( fa, سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران, sâzmân-e mojâhedīn-e khalq-e īrân), is an Iranian pol ...

(aka Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK), a group exiled from Iran after actions in the 1970s against the Shah of Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini, as had former Joint Chiefs of Staff General

Hugh Shelton Henry Hugh Shelton (born January 2, 1942) is a former United States Army officer who served as the 14th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 2001. Early life, family and education Shelton was born in Tarboro, North Carolina and g ...

, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps General

James T. Conway James Terry Conway (born December 26, 1947) is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 34th Commandant of the Marine Corps. Among his previous postings were Director of Operations (J-3) on the Joint Chiefs of S ...

, former National Security Advisor General

James L. Jones James Logan Jones Jr. (born December 19, 1943) is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general and consultant who served as the 21st United States National Security Advisor from 2009 to 2010. During his military career, he served as th ...

, former CIA Directors

Porter Goss Porter Johnston Goss (; born November 26, 1938) is an American politician and government official who served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 until 2004, when he became the last Director of Central Intellig ...

and

James Woolsey Robert James Woolsey Jr. (born September 21, 1941) is an American political appointee who has served in various senior positions. He headed the Central Intelligence Agency as Director of Central Intelligence from February 5, 1993, until January 1 ...

, former FBI Director

Louis Freeh Louis Joseph Freeh (born January 6, 1950) is an American attorney and former judge who served as the fifth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from September 1993 to June 2001. Graduated from Rutgers University and New York Universi ...

, former

NYC New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Mayor

Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...

, and former Governors

Howard Dean Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, lobbyist, and retired politician who served as the 79th governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 200 ...

of Vermont and

Ed Rendell Edward Gene Rendell (; born January 5, 1944) is an American lawyer, prosecutor, politician, and author. He served as the 45th Governor of Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2011, as chair of the national Democratic Party, and as the 96th Mayor of Philade ...

of Pennsylvania. Chao was paid a total of $67,000 for the two speeches, which took place in 2015 and 2016. Chao served as a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute until she was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Transportation on January 31, 2017.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation (2017–2021)

Donald Trump Cabinet meeting 2017-03-13 02

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on November 29, 2016, that he would nominate Chao to be Secretary of Transportation. The U.S. Senate confirmed Chao on January 31, 2017, by a vote of 93–6, with her husband, then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, abstaining. While there was support on both sides of the Senate, some Senators feared contention, cautioning "against the privatization of government services, alluding to a possible point of friction between Democrats and the incoming Trump administration." On January 7, 2021, the day after the

2021 storming of the United States Capitol On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-United States President, U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol, U ...

, Chao submitted her resignation effective January 11, 2021. "In her two-page resignation letter to Trump, which included just one sentence about the Capitol riots, she thanked the president for the opportunity to serve as Transportation secretary and highlighted the department's accomplishments over the last four years."

Drone technology

In 2017, Chao announced the establishment of a pilot program to test and evaluate the integration of civil and public drone operations into the airspace system. In 2018 ten applicants were selected to participate in the project. In 2019, the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

(FAA) issued an air carrier and operator certificate to

UPS Flight Forward UPS Flight Forward Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of UPS (United Parcel Service) focused on drone delivery. The company was formally launched in July 2019, and on October 1, 2019, became the first company to receive the Federal Aviation Administr ...

for drone deliveries to a hospital campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. In December 2019, after multiple reports in Colorado and Nebraska of unidentified objects flying in formation at night over several remote rural counties, the FAA proposed a new rule that would require drones to be remotely identifiable.

Other proposals

In March 2019, Chao announced the formation of the Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology (NETT) Council, an internal Department of Transportation group for identifying "jurisdictional and regulatory gaps" when considering new transportation technologies. In April 2019, the FAA released proposed new regulations to modernize the rules for commercial space flight launches and reentries. At a congressional hearing in July 2019, the president of the

Commercial Spaceflight Federation The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a private spaceflight industry group, incorporated as an industry association for the purposes of establishing ever higher levels of safety for the commercial human spaceflight industry, sharing best pract ...

criticized the proposal as not delivering on its stated goals.

Controversies

An October 2018 Politico analysis found that Chao had more than 290 hours of appointments which were labelled as "private" during working hours on working days in the first 14 months of her tenure as Secretary of Transportation. Former Department of Transportation officials described this as unusual. Current DoT officials stated that the "private" labeling existed to help ensure Chao's security by obscuring her actual activities.

Conflicts of interest

As Secretary of Transportation, Chao appeared in at least a dozen interviews with her father, James, a shipping magnate with extensive business interests in China. The Transportation Department's inspector general cited numerous instances where Chao's office helped promote her family's shipping business. The inspector general asked the Trump administration's Justice Department in December 2020 to consider a criminal investigation into Chao, but the DOJ refused. Ethics experts said the appearances raised ethical concerns, as public officials are prohibited from using their office to profit others or themselves. Federal disclosures cited by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' revealed a gift to Chao and her husband Mitch McConnell from Chao's businessman father James, valued between $5million and $25million. The company her father founded (and which her sister, Angela, currently runs), The Foremost Group, has extensive ties to the Chinese state and Chinese elites. It obtained hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loans from a bank owned by the Chinese state, has substantial interests tied to a major shipyard funded by and long-term contracts with a steel producer owned by the Chinese state. In what ''The Times'' described as "a rarity for foreigners", Angela and James Chao have served on the boards of a Chinese state-owned shipbuilder, and Angela has been on the board of the

Bank of China The Bank of China (BOC; ) is a Chinese majority state-owned commercial bank headquartered in Beijing and the fourth largest bank in the world. The Bank of China was founded in 1912 by the Republican government as China's central bank, repl ...

, as well as the

China Council for the Promotion of International Trade The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (; CCPIT) is a trade body founded in 1952. It also goes by the name of the China Chamber of International Commerce (, CCOIC). CCPIT is under the Ministry of Commerce. The CCPIT develops b ...

(which was created by the

government of China The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an Authoritarianism, authoritarian political system in the China, People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of Leg ...

). From January 2018 to April 2019, 72% of the total tonnage shipped by Foremost was shipped to and from China. The Foremost Group has almost no footprint in the United States other than its headquarters in New York. During the period when Chao appeared with her father at promotional events for the family company, the US Department of Transportation repeatedly sought to cut funding and loan guarantees for domestic American shipping companies, shipyards, and shipbuilders. These proposed budget cuts were rejected by Congress in a bipartisan fashion. Chao's Department also sought for three years to prevent funding for a program that supports the viability of small domestic US shipyards, and a separate program that issues loan guarantees for the construction or reconstruction of ships with American registration. Chao pledged in 2017 to sell the stock she had earned while she was on the board of directors of

Vulcan Materials Vulcan Materials Company () is an American company based in Birmingham, Alabama. It is principally engaged in the production, distribution and sale of construction materials. Vulcan is the largest producer of construction materials, primarily gra ...

, one of the largest suppliers of road-paving materials in the United States, by April 2018. After the Wall Street Journal and other major news outlets reported in late May 2019 that she was still holding the stock, worth $250,000 to $500,000, she sold it on June 3, 2019, for a gain of $50,000 since April 2018. In June 2019, ''Politico'' reported that in 2017 Chao had designated her aide Todd Inman as a special liaison "to help with grant applications and other priorities" for Transportation Department projects in the state of

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

, the only state to have such a liaison. Inman was to act as an intermediary between the Department, local Kentucky officials, and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who is Chao's husband. This resulted in grants of at least $78million for projects in Mitch McConnell strongholds Boone County and

Owensboro Owensboro is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Daviess County, Kentucky, United States. It is the fourth-largest city in the state by population. Owensboro is located on U.S. Route 60 and Interstate 165 about southwest of Lou ...

. Inman had worked on the 2008 and 2014 re-election campaigns of McConnell; McConnell and local officials brought up the grants when he announced in Owensboro in December 2018 that he was running for re-election in 2020. Inman later became Chao's chief of staff. In September 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives

Committee on Oversight and Reform The Committee on Oversight and Reform is the main investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee's broad jurisdiction and legislative authority make it one of the most influential and powerful panels in the ...

began an investigation into whether she used political office to benefit her family's business interests. A September 16 letter from the Oversight committee to Chao documented allegations that the Department of Transportation was forced to cancel a trip to China in 2017 that Chao had planned to take because State Department ethics officials challenged her attempts to include her family members in official meetings with the Chinese government.

=Inspector General report

= On March 4, 2021, the Inspector General released their report citing Chao for numerous ethics violations, including using department resources for personal errands and for promoting her father's biography. It also stated that it had referred its investigation to the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington D.C. for criminal prosecution in December 2020. Both declined to open criminal investigations into Chao.

Removal of Inspector General

In May 2020, the Trump administration removed the acting Inspector General of the Transportation Department, Mitch Behm. Behm, who was not a political appointee, was conducting an investigation into whether Secretary Elaine Chao was giving preferential treatment to projects in Kentucky. Her husband, Mitch McConnell, is the Senator of Kentucky and faced a re-election bid at the time. Trump appointed Howard "Skip" Elliott as interim Inspector General of the Transportation Department. However, at the same time, Elliott served in a dual role where Chao was his boss. Thus, Elliott was head of an office that was investigating his own actions and those of Chao.

Post-Trump administration

In August 2021, Chao was elected to the board of directors of the

Kroger The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States. Founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincin ...

supermarket chain. The news was met with backlash from Kroger customers on Twitter, with calls for a boycott trending nationally, due to her ties to the Trump administration and to her husband, Mitch McConnell. In early October 2022, Donald Trump posted on his social media in a criticism of Mitch McConnell, "He has a DEATH WISH. Must immediately seek help and advise from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!" Trump used the racist nickname again in a November 13, 2022 post criticizing McConnell, saying "everyone despises cConnelland his otherwise lovely wife, Coco Chow!"

Awards and honorary degrees

Chao holds thirty-six

honorary doctorates An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

, including an honorary

Doctor of Humane Letters The degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (; DHumLitt; DHL; or LHD) is an honorary degree awarded to those who have distinguished themselves through humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society. The criteria for awarding the degree differ ...

from Georgetown

McDonough School of Business The Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business, commonly shorted to the McDonough School of Business and abbreviated as the MSB, is the business school of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1957, it grants both undergraduate and ...

in 2015. She was initiated into

Omicron Delta Kappa Omicron Delta Kappa (), also known as The Circle and ODK, is one of the most prestigious honor societies in the United States with chapters at more than 300 college campuses. It was founded December 3, 1914, at Washington and Lee University in ...

at SUNY Plattsburgh as an ''honoris causa'' initiate in 1996.

Personal life

Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao (cropped)

In 1993, Chao married

, U.S. Senator from Kentucky. The

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...

's Ekstrom Library opened the "McConnell-Chao Archives" in November 2009. It is a major component of the university's McConnell Center.

Husband's campaigning

In the two years leading up to the 2014 U.S. Senate elections, Chao "headlined fifty of her own events and attended hundreds more with and on behalf of" her husband and was seen as "a driving force of his reelection campaign" and eventual victory over Democratic candidate

Alison Lundergan Grimes Alison Case Lundergan Grimes (born November 23, 1978) is an American lawyer and Democratic politician who was the secretary of state of Kentucky from 2012 until 2020. Grimes was elected in 2011 after defeating incumbent Elaine Walker in the De ...

, who had portrayed McConnell as "anti-woman". After winning the election, McConnell said, "The biggest asset I have by far is the only Kentucky woman who served in a president's cabinet, my wife, Elaine Chao." She has been described by Jan Karzen, a longtime friend of McConnell's, as adding "a softer touch" to McConnell's style by speaking of him "in a feminine, wifely way". She has also been described as "the campaign hugger" and is also known for bipartisan socializing. For example, in 2014 she hosted a dinner with philanthropist Catherine B. Reynolds to welcome

Penny Pritzker Penny Sue Pritzker (born May 2, 1959) is an American billionaire businesswoman and civic leader who served as the 38th United States secretary of commerce in the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017. She was confirmed by a Senate vote of 97� ...

Secretary of Commerce The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...

, where she spent the evening socializing with

Valerie Jarrett Valerie June Jarrett ( Bowman; born November 14, 1956) is an American businesswoman and former government official. She currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Obama Foundation. She previously served as the Senior Advisor to the Pre ...

, Obama's closest advisor. ''

'' described Chao as "an unapologetically ambitious operator with an expansive network, a short fuse, and a seemingly inexhaustible drive to get to the top and stay there". Chao's father has donated millions of dollars to Mitch McConnell's re-election campaigns. Chao's extended family has given more than a million dollars to McConnell's campaigns. The extended family is also a top contributor to the

Republican Party of Kentucky The Republican Party of Kentucky is the affiliate of the Republican Party in Kentucky and follows its nationally established platform. The party's headquarters is in Frankfort, Kentucky. The party gained relevance around the 1940s. Since this ...

, giving it approximately $525,000 over two decades.

The Chao family

Elaine Chao is the oldest of six sisters, the others being Jeannette, May, Christine, Grace, and Angela. Grace is married to

Gordon Hartogensis Gordon Hartogensis (born June 17, 1970) is an American businessman, investor, and government official who has served as the Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) since 2019. At PBGC, he has led the agency during the multiem ...

who was nominated by President Trump in May 2018 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as director of the

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a United States federally chartered corporation created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to encourage the continuation and maintenance of voluntary private defined b ...

(PBGC), a part of the Labor Department, in May 2019. Hartogensis co-founded forecasting-software company Petrolsoft in 1989, which was purchased for $60million by Aspen Technology in 2000. He founded and led application software company Auric Technology LLC until it was sold to a company based in Mexico in 2011 and then helped govern the Hartogensis Family Trust. In April 2008, Chao's father gave Chao and McConnell between $5million and $25million, which "boosted McConnell's personal worth from a minimum of $3million in 2007 to more than $7million" and "helped the McConnells after their stock portfolio dipped in the wake of the financial crisis that year". In 2012, the Chao family donated $40million to

for scholarships to students of Chinese heritage and for the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, an

executive education Executive education (ExEd or Exec. Ed) refers to academic programs at graduate-level business schools for executives, business leaders and functional managers globally. These programs are generally non-credit and non-degree-granting, but sometime ...

building named for Chao's late mother. It is the first Harvard Business School building named after a woman and the first building named after an American of Asian ancestry.

returned to school at age 51 to earn a master's degree in

Asian literature Asian literature is the literature produced in Asia. Examples *East Asian literature ** Chinese literature ** Japanese literature ** Korean literature **Mongolian literature ** Taiwanese literature *South Asian literature ** Indian literature **Pak ...

and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

from St. John's University in the

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

of New York City.

Notes

References

External links

* * * , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Chao, Elaine 1953 births 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians American women chief executives American politicians of Taiwanese descent American women of Taiwanese descent in politics Federal Maritime Commission members George H. W. Bush administration personnel George W. Bush administration cabinet members Harvard Business School alumni Hudson Institute Kentucky Republicans Living people Mount Holyoke College alumni American people of Chinese descent New York (state) Republicans News Corporation people Peace Corps directors People from Syosset, New York Naturalized citizens of the United States Politicians from Taipei Reagan administration personnel Spouses of Kentucky politicians Syosset High School alumni Taiwanese emigrants to the United States The Heritage Foundation Trump administration cabinet members United States Deputy Secretaries of Transportation United States Secretaries of Labor United States Secretaries of Transportation White House Fellows Mitch McConnell Chinese-American members of the Cabinet of the United States Women members of the Cabinet of the United States American politicians of Chinese descent Articles containing video clips Asian conservatism in the United States

Early life and education

Career

Early career

Between Bush administrations

U.S. Secretary of Labor (2001–2009)

Union disclosure requirements

Government Accountability Office reports

Mining regulation

Workplace safety

Post-Bush administration (2009–2017)

U.S. Secretary of Transportation (2017–2021)

Drone technology

Other proposals

Controversies

Conflicts of interest

=Inspector General report

Removal of Inspector General

Post-Trump administration

Awards and honorary degrees

Personal life

Husband's campaigning

The Chao family

See also

Notes

References

External links