From 1993 to 1995, Clayton
clerked for Judge
Marvin Katz of the
District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. After being a summer
associate at the firm in the summer of 1992, Clayton joined
Sullivan & Cromwell full-time in October 1995 and became a
partner in January 2001. At
Sullivan & Cromwell, Clayton was a member of the firm's management committee and co-managing partner of the firm's General Practice Group. He specialized in
mergers and acquisitions transactions and
capital markets offerings He served as an adviser to numerous companies regarding issues related to the SEC,
Federal Reserve,
Department of Justice, and other agencies.
Ally Financial,
Och-Ziff Capital Management,
Oaktree Capital Management,
Blackhawk Network Holdings, and
Moelis & Company.
Paul Tudor Jones, former
attorney general of Ireland Peter Sutherland,
CDW founder
Michael Krasny and
LinkedIn founder
Reid Hoffman. Clayton earned $7.6 million in 2016 from his firm and has a family wealth of at least $50 million. A substantial portion of his holdings were in mutual funds of the Vanguard Group. His investments also included private funds managed by
Apollo Global Management,
Bain Capital,
J.C. Flowers & Co., and
Richard C. Perry but he divested these investments upon confirmation.
SEC chair Nomination and confirmation On January 4, 2017, President-elect
Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Clayton to be SEC chairman, and he was nominated on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017. Clayton's nomination was endorsed by
Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. On May 2, 2017, the
U.S. Senate voted 61–37 to confirm Clayton as chairman of the SEC. Votes cast in favor of Clayton's confirmation included nine Democrats and one Independent alongside 51 Republican votes. On May 4, 2017, Clayton was sworn in, marking the official beginning of his role as chairman.
Tenure In connection with the nomination of Clayton in January, President Trump said in a statement that "we need to undo many regulations which have stifled investment in American businesses, and restore oversight of the financial industry in a way that does not harm American workers." Upon Clayton's swearing-in, the
SEC consisted of Clayton;
Michael Piwowar, who was serving as acting chairman; and
Kara Stein. Subsequently,
Hester Peirce and
Robert J. Jackson Jr. joined the commission. In 2018, Piwowar and Stein stepped down, and Elad Roisman and Allison Lee joined the commission in 2018 and 2019 respectively. Clayton has expressed concern about the decline in the number of U.S. public companies and also has been outspoken on
securities law issues related to distributed
ledger technology,
cryptocurrencies and
initial coin offerings. Some predicted that he will look to encourage
initial public offerings (IPOs) of companies and streamline the
capital formation process by reducing the regulatory framework that applies to public companies in the United States. Several high-profile prosecutions occurred during Clayton's tenure, including against then-representative
Chris Collins in 2018, and Senator
Richard Burr and the
Eastman Kodak Company in 2020. By 2019, the number of insider trading cases had decreased, with enforcement decreasing to its lowest level since 1985, though the commission ordered record financial penalties that year and the following year. In November 2020, Clayton stated his intention to resign at the end of the year, although his term would expire at the end of June 2021, Clayton resigned on December 23, 2020. One of his final actions at the SEC before resigning was to sue
Ripple Labs challenging the legality of trading cryptocurrency
XRP as an unregistered security, which the company called "a parting shot".
After SEC In February 2021,
Apollo Global Management appointed Clayton to the newly created role of lead independent director on its board. Clayton rejoined
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where he was a partner before entering government, to become senior policy adviser and counsel. In March 2024, Clayton joined CFGI as an independent member of its board of directors. Clayton was selected on November 14, 2024, by President elect Trump to be
United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.
United States attorney for the Southern District of New York On June 19, 2020, Attorney General
Bill Barr announced that President Trump would nominate Clayton to replace
Geoffrey Berman as
United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. However, Clayton was not selected, and instead
Audrey Strauss was installed as acting US attorney for Southern District of New York. In April 2025, Clayton resumed his path to the role when President Trump announced Clayton would become the interim U.S. attorney for Manhattan pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate. When his nomination stalled in the Senate, judges in SDNY appointed Clayton on August 18 to serve as US attorney effective August 20. As US attorney, Clayton signed the U.S. indictment against Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and five other defendants which was unsealed on January 3, 2026, the day President Maduro and his wife were captured by the CIA in Caracas and brought to be tried in the United States District Court Southern District of New York. In February 2026, Clayton announced a new initiative where companies can avoid criminal charges if they self-report fraud or financial misconduct affecting market integrity.
Professional memberships and activities Clayton is a member of the
American Bar Association, served as an
adjunct professor at University of Pennsylvania Law School beginning in 2009, and was chairman of the New York City Bar Committee on International Business Transactions beginning in 2010. Prior to his confirmation, Clayton was on the Executive Committee of the Metropolitan Golf Association. Clayton was a member of the board of directors at
American Express from 2022 to 2025, stepping down to remove conflicts of interest as he assumed the role of US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was an advisor to Fireblocks, the
Israel-based
cryptocurrency firm and One River. == Personal life ==