George Pratt Shultz (born December 13, 1920) is an American economist, politician, and businessman.

He serves in various positions under three different Republican presidents and is one of only two people to have held four different Cabinet posts.

Shultz plays a major role in shaping the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration.

From 1974 to 1982, he is an executive of Bechtel Group, an engineering and services company.

In the 2010s, Shultz is a prominent figure in the scandal of the biotech firm Theranos, continuing to support it as a board member in the face of mounting evidence of fraud.

Born in New York City, he graduated from Princeton University before serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Second World War.

After the war, Shultz earned a Ph.D. in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He taught at MIT from 1948 to 1957, taking a leave of absence in 1955 to take a position on President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers.

After serving as dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, he accepts President Richard Nixon's appointment as United States Secretary of Labor.

In this position, he imposes the Philadelphia Plan on construction contractors who refuse to accept black members, marking the first use of racial quotas by the federal government.

In 1970, he beomes the first director of the Office of Management and Budget, and he serves in this position until his appointment as United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1972.

In this role, Shultz supports the Nixon shock (which seeks to revive the ailing economy in part by abolishing the gold standard) and presides over the end of the Bretton Woods system.

Shultz leaves the Nixon administration in 1974 to become an executive at Bechtel.

After becoming president and director of that company, he accepts President Ronald Reagan's offer to serve as United States Secretary of State.

He holds this office from 1982 to 1989.

Shultz pushes for Reagan to establish relations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which leads to a thaw between the United States and the Soviet Union.

He opposes the U.S. aid to rebels trying to overthrow the Sandinistas using funds from an illegal sale of weapons to Iran that leads to the Iran–Contra affair.

Shultz retires from public office in 1989 but remains active in business and politics.

He serves as an informal adviser to George W. Bush and helps formulate the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.

He serves on the Global Commission on Drug Policy, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Economic Recovery Council, and on the boards of Bechtel and the Charles Schwab Corporation.

Since 2013, Shultz has repeatedly advocated for a revenue-neutral carbon tax as the most economically sound means of mitigating anthropogenic climate change.

He is a member of the Hoover Institution, the Institute for International Economics, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and other groups.

Since the death of William Thaddeus Coleman Jr., Shultz is the oldest living former U.S. Cabinet member.

Along with Henry Kissinger, he is one of two living members of Nixon's Cabinet.