Hegseth was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Brian, a basketball coach, and Penny Hegseth. He was raised in nearby 展开

After graduating from Princeton in 2003, Hegseth briefly joined Bear Stearns as an equity capital markets analyst, and was also commissioned as an infantry officer in the Minnesota National Guard.
During 2004–2005, his unit was called to Guantanamo Bay Naval … 展开

Hegseth returned to active duty in 2012 as a captain. He volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan with the Minnesota Army National Guard to train Afghan security forces. In 2014, Hegseth … 展开

Nomination
On November 12, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he intended to nominate Hegseth to serve as the next U.S. … 展开

Upon his return from Iraq, Hegseth worked briefly at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. According to his LinkedIn page, Hegseth left the conservative think tank in 2007 to work as executive … 展开

Hegseth was the executive director for Concerned Veterans for America, an advocacy group funded by the Koch brothers from 2013 to 2016. The group advocated greater privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and sought to get veterans … 展开

Alice Herman of The Guardian has described Hegseth as having a "Christian nationalist ideology", and as "someone immersed in a culture of rightwing Christianity, political … 展开