Kevin Warsh took the oath of office as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on May 22, 2026, capping a leadership transition that had briefly placed Jerome H. Powell in a caretaker role.

Powell was designated chair pro tempore by the Federal Reserve Board on May 15, 2026, per a Fed press release — a formal bridging arrangement that held until Warsh was sworn in one week later. The pro tempore designation is a standard governance mechanism; it preserves the Chair's statutory functions during any gap between a departing and arriving principal.

Warsh is not a new name to the Fed. He served as a Governor on the Board from 2006 to 2011, appointed by President George W. Bush at age 35 — making him, at the time, the youngest person ever to join the Board. His earlier tenure covered the acute phase of the 2008 financial crisis and the early, contested rounds of quantitative easing. He was publicly skeptical of extended accommodation and dissented from or questioned several post-crisis policy expansions, a record that shaped his reputation as a hawkish institutionalist.

That history matters for how the market is likely to read his chairmanship. Warsh's prior policy instincts leaned toward restoring conventional monetary frameworks — balance sheet normalization, rule-based rate-setting, and a wariness of the Fed's footprint in credit allocation. Whether those instincts govern his current thinking is unknown; the verified facts here are solely about his assumption of office.

Powell's week-long pro tempore stint warrants a brief note. He had served as Chair since February 2018, navigating the post-pandemic inflation surge, an aggressive tightening cycle, and the subsequent easing pivot. His designation as interim chair rather than a clean departure suggests the Board managed the succession tightly, avoiding any ambiguity about institutional authority during the handoff. The Fed's operating continuity depends on a named Chair being formally in place; even a short gap creates legal and operational exposure around open market operations, emergency lending authorities, and FOMC voting procedures.

The transition lands at a moment when the Fed's policy trajectory — and its independence — are subjects of active public and political scrutiny. Rate levels, balance sheet composition, and the pace of any further easing or tightening will now carry Warsh's signature. His first formal communications as Chair, including any FOMC statements or Humphrey-Hawkins testimony, will be the primary read on continuity versus recalibration. Until those arrive, the verified record is simply this: the gavel changed hands on May 22.