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 in the Trump administration 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 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 ...

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, which eventually became a major shipping corporation. Chao was raised on Long Island, New York, and subsequently received degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Harvard Business School. She worked for a number of financial institutions before being appointed to several senior positions in the Department of Transportation under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, including Chair of the Federal Maritime Commission (1988–1989) and Deputy Secretary of Transportation (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 and worked for The Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institute, two conservative think-tanks. Chao is married to U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell. 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, 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 Foremost Group. 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 ce ...

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 ...

in Syosset, New York, in Nassau County on Long Island and was naturalized 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, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, 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 ...

. 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 Harvard Business School 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 ...

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 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 ...

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 Federal Maritime Commission. 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 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 populou ...

, Latvia, 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 List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

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. 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 in ...

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 ...

in Washington, D.C. 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, 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 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 Law of the United States, United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of trade union, labor unions. It was enacted by the 80th United S ...

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 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.

Government Accountability Office reports

After analyzing 70,000 closed case files from 2005 to 2007, the Government Accountability Office 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 workers alleging that employers failed to pay the federal minimum wage, required overtime, and failed to issue a last paycheck. A 2008 Government Accountability Office 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 (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 The Heritage Foundation, 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

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, New York–Presbyterian Hospital, News Corp,

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. 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's " Beyond Coal" 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. ne ...

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, former National Security Advisor General James L. Jones, former CIA Directors Porter Goss and James Woolsey, 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 Univers ...

, 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, 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 2009 ...

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 Philad ...

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 ...

(FAA) issued an air carrier and operator certificate to UPS Flight Forward 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 d ...

'' 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, 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 authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, m ...

). 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, 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 ...

, 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 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 Cinci ...

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 hon ...

, 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 in 2015. She was initiated into Omicron Delta Kappa at SUNY Plattsburgh as an ''honoris causa'' initiate in 1996.

Personal life

Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao (cropped)

In 1993, Chao married Mitch McConnell, 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 o ...

'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 D ...

, 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 as Secretary of Commerce, 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 U.S. ...

, 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, 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 (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 Harvard Business School for scholarships to students of Chinese heritage and for the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, an executive education 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. Ruth Mulan Chu Chao 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 **Pakis ...

and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

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 A ...

of New York City.

Notes

References

External links

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