Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan is on the shortlist to succeed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, according to a report from Fox Business.

Multiple sources told the outlet the longtime investment banker joined Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on the list of potential candidates to take over the challenging role of managing the federal government’s finances.

Bank of America executive Lawrence DiRita, who manages the company’s public affairs, declined comment but would not deny the speculation regarding Moynihan, according to Fox Business. A spokesman for the White House also declined comment, while White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday that the report “seems to be pure speculation.”

Moynihan previously worked as chief executive of Merrill Lynch before the company was sold to Bank of America in 2008; he became the second-largest American financial institution’s chief executive two years later. Fox Business notes that Moynihan has been attending state dinners and accepting media interviews in which he advances the optimistic economic outlook maintained by the White House.

An earlier report from Axios found that Yellen and other officials could resign after the midterm elections. One concern that might have prevented Yellen’s exit was finding a replacement that could be approved by the Senate; however, a lackluster Republican performance has guaranteed that the upper chamber will remain in Democratic hands. The report added that Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, and Cecilia Rouse, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, could depart early next year.

Yellen, who formerly led the Federal Reserve, has so far denied the rumor of her upcoming exit from the administration. “There is no truth to that,” she recently told MSNBC anchor and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart.

The 76-year-old economist has been the subject of criticism over the past two years for downplaying the impact that record inflation would have on the economy. By the end of last year, Yellen began pivoting away from the term “transitory” as a reliable descriptor for rising price levels.

“I am ready to retire the word transitory,” she said. “I can agree that that hasn’t been an apt description of what we are dealing with.”

Earlier this year, she told CNN host Wolf Blitzer that she was “wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” acknowledging that “there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly.”

The White House has also been criticized for arguing that the economy never entered a recession, even though the rule-of-thumb definition, two conservative quarters of negative growth, was satisfied in the first half of this year. Administration officials have claimed that only an official determination from the National Bureau of Economic Research would mean the nation was in a prolonged contraction.

In one set of particularly eyebrow-raising comments, Yellen asserted that the nation was not in a recession but rather a “period of transition in which growth is slowing.”

Inspired by the recent actions of new Twitter owner and chief executive Elon Musk, more business leaders in California’s Silicon Valley are dismissing surplus employees.

The startup and venture capital industries appeared to take note as Musk acquired the social media company and dismissed two-thirds of employees with no apparent impact on the platform’s operations. According to the billionaire entrepreneur, the number of new Twitter users and the amount of time users spend on the site have increased under his leadership.

“The fact that Twitter is running well with headcount down significantly really matters,” Atreides Management Chief Investment Officer Gavin Baker remarked, adding that many Silicon Valley executives begrudgingly admire Musk. He cited an email from a venture-funded manager dismissing employees and explaining that only top performers would be permitted to keep their posts, recalling language used by Musk as he downsized Twitter in recent weeks.

“We will start to hear ‘lighter is faster’ and references to small teams being superior to large teams,” Baker continued. He noted that “strong CEOs cut early” when the odds of the company’s success are higher, and employees have better prospects on the job market, while “weak CEOs cut late and thereby put everyone at risk.”

“Nature is healing,” Musk replied, appearing to reference Silicon Valley’s former culture of scrappy founders stretching every dollar and focusing narrowly on business outcomes.

Beyond the dismissals, Musk told remaining employees that they should expect “extremely hardcore” working hours if they desire to stay at the company. He added that the firm would become “much more engineering-driven,” implying a pivot away from “design and product management” emphases.

In the wake of the dismissals at Twitter, executives have faced pressure from investors to reduce bloated payrolls. Companies such as Meta, HP, Lyft, DoorDash, and Amazon have announced layoffs or paused new hires, citing macroeconomic pressures and excess growth in their staff following the demand surge that accompanied the rollback of lockdown measures.

Commentators have drawn attention to a reckoning in the technology sector’s job market as social media videos of employees enjoying company amenities while appearing to do little work have gained traction. One 23-year-old product manager at Meta, for instance, recorded a “day in the life” video complete with workouts and free coffees rather than staff meetings or work calendars.

“It is a poorly kept secret in Silicon Valley that companies ranging from Google to Meta to Twitter to Uber could achieve similar levels of revenue with far fewer people,” Altimeter Capital Management CEO Brad Gerstner wrote in a recent letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “I would take it a step further and argue that these incredible companies would run even better and more efficiently without the layers and lethargy that comes with this extreme rate of employee expansion.”

Baker likewise contrasted “summer” and “winter” executives, noting that more are transitioning to the latter category after the actions taken by Musk, constituting a boon for venture funds. “They are going to drive margins and do more with less,” he said. “Their companies will be more likely to succeed and their employees will do better.”