Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent named a Wall Street and military veteran to advise on plans for a sovereign wealth fund, taking a further step toward fulfilling President Donald Trump’s idea for the US to join the ranks of nations with such assets.

Washington may not have a sovereign wealth fund, but almost half the U.S. states do. Indeed, the earliest precursor of a national sovereign wealth fund was established in the United States: in 1803, Ohio created a land trust to finance public education in the state.

Danantara Indonesia will invest $20 billion in a wide range of projects from metal processing to artificial intelligence, President Prabowo Subianto said.

A sovereign wealth fund often serves as a vehicle to invest a government’s budget surplus. The U.S. doesn’t have that luxury.

Effectively, it's a government-run hedge fund that invests in assets like stocks, bonds, real estate, and infrastructure. It's a fairly straightforward process: the government provides funds, and the SWF invest it into risky assets to try to earn profits. This is the same as any investment company, only that its sole investor is the government.

Egypt aims to move state-owned enterprises to be managed by the country's sovereign wealth fund, to maximise the return on state assets, Investment Minister Hassan El Khatib said on Wednesday. Egypt has been divesting state assets under a programme to boost the role of the private sector,

Indonesia on Monday launched a new sovereign wealth fund that will aim to manage state assets worth more than $900 billion as President Prabowo Subianto looks to turbo-charge growth in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

Danantara, the nation's newly established sovereign wealth fund, may end up stifling growth instead of fuelling it, analysts warn.