Anthony Scaramucci won a bold bet on President Trump — then turned around and lost it.
The New York hedgies’ appointment as White House advisor and public liaison — secured after he was among Donald Trump’s few public supporters on Wall Street before the election — is getting nixed amid a prolonged probe into the planned sale of his fund to a Chinese conglomerate with reported ties to the communist party.
It is possible that “the Mooch,” as Scaramucci is known among his financial pals, will be considered for other roles, including an ambassadorship, according to reports. In the meantime, however, there’s little but uncertainty on the menu.
Last month, Scaramucci said he would joining President Trump in a role that had been compared to Valerie Jarrett’s role on the Obama administration — even though Scaramucci frequently downplayed the comparison in interviews.
The White House gig, announced on Jan. 13 by Scaramucci himself, necessitated he leave his current role as the head of fund of hedge funds Skybridge Capital.
It was not a role he took lightly. On the day after the election, Scaramucci told The Post that selling his business was “like you would be asking me to leave my local bodega.”
Selling the “bodega,” it turns out, was at least partly responsible for the end of The Mooch’s White House ambitions.
Just days after announcing his new job, Scaramucci sold Skybridge to foreign buyers for an originally undisclosed amount. The deal, which was later to reported to be $200 million, is expected to close in the first half of the year.
Buyers of the $12 billion firm are HNA Holdings — a Chinese firm whose ties to the communist party have lately come under media scrutiny — as well as RON Transatlantic, an even lesser-known investment firm that provides scant disclosure about its holdings, investors and management on its website.
The lengthy transaction and uncertainty about the buyers rang alarm bells at the White House.
To be confirmed for the gig, Scaramucci must submit to a review by the Office of Government Ethics, which typically takes 90 days. Using foreign buyers to divest himself from his business has only complicated the process.
Both Reince Preibus and Steve Bannon, advisors to Trump, wanted the role filled immediately, according to a Fox Business report.
The timing issues are a setback for Scaramucci who, as a friend told The Post, “has been excited about the role and administration.”
“He deserves to have a lot of good things go his way,” the friend added.
Itching to get started, Scaramucci last month made an appearance on CNBC, where he used to be a contributor, after announcing the new job.
A few days before, he was giving TV interviews at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, acting like a Trump emissary, according to many observers.
The apparent end of Scaramucci’s White House ambitions follows the hedgies’ own up-and-down relationship with Trump.
A critic of Trump early in the presidential election cycle, Scaramucci initially supported Governor Scott Walker and then Gov. Jeb Bush.
In August 2015, while stumping for Walker, Scaramucci called Trump a “hack politician” and an “inherited money dude from Queens County,” in an interview with Fox Business.
But by May 2016, as his early bets fell by the wayside, Scaramucci went against the grain to become an enthusiastic Trump convert and booster, and defended the now-President during Trump’s more controversial moments on the campaign trail.
After an video of Trump describing lewd behavior towards women emerged in October, Scaramucci got a lot of flak from friends for tweeting: “No one can excuse the statements but they weren’t public. Think for a moment of your worst private moment exposed, then start your judgment.”
Just after announcing his support for Trump in May, Scaramucci invited Steve Mnuchin, then Trump’s campaign’s finance chairman, to attend the SALT Conference. The shindig, which until recently was organized by Skybridge, is an annual bacchanalia held in Las Vegas that’s well-attended by hedge fund millionaires and billionaires.
At the time, much of Wall Street hadn’t warmed up to Trump, despite Scaramucci’s frequent proclamations of his virtues during the conference.
While the SALT Conference will be held this year, its fate amid the sale of Skybridge is unclear.
Scaramucci, a Long Island native, founded Skybridge in 2005 and launched the SALT conference four years later. Prior to launching SkyBridge, Scaramucci had stints at Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs.
He was notably hired, fired and then rehired by Goldman in a span of 18 months. Scaramucci went to Tufts University for undergrad and then got a law degree from Harvard.
Scaramucci and the White House did not respond to requests to comment
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