Dan Scavino Jr

White House social media director Dan Scavino is President Donald Trump's longest-serving aide, and the mastermind behind much of Trump's social media strategy. His relationship with Trump runs all the way back to 1990, when a 16-year-old Scavino was hand-picked to be Trump's caddie. Now, according to a recent report in Politico, Scavino is an "indispensable" member of Trump's team, and one of the staffers who spends the most time with Trump and serves as a sounding board for his social media strategy and even policy issues. Scavino's family hails from northern Italy. His great-grandfather entered the US through Ellis Island in the early 1900s and soon settled in New York City. After his ancestor Vittorio came to New York in 1904, other members of his family followed over the next few years. Scavino was born in 1976 and grew up in the New York City metropolitan area. Scavino went on to graduate from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh in 1997, and then worked several jobs in his 20s, including on in the sales department of a Coca-Cola bottler. In 2004, Trump hired Scavino to be the assistant manager of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester where they had first met, and he became the executive vice president of the club in 2008. Shortly after Trump's victory in the election, the president-elect named Scavino White House Director of Social Media. While Trump writes most of his own tweets, Scavino directs the overall tone of Trump's feed, often taking other staffers' suggestions for tweets adapting them to "Trump it up," — or channel Trump's exact thoughts and feelings In January 2019, Scavino's personal life took a hit when he and his wife Jennifer filed for divorce. They had been married for 18 years and have two children. In 2023 Scavino was paid $240,000 by Trump's Truth Social through a consulting agreement with his company, Hudson Digital. Scavino will also receive a $600,000 retention bonus in April 2024. Trump Media also issued a $2.2 million “executive promissory note” to Scavino which may have been converted to stock.