Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce will leave the regulator effective Friday, according to a resignation letter she posted on social media.
Though Peirce’s planned resignation has been public since earlier this year, the exact dates were not known until Peirce posted her resignation letter to President Donald Trump on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Friday afternoon.
Peirce’s resignation will leave Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda as the only remaining commissioners at the agency. Like Peirce, Atkins and Uyeda are Republican appointees.
In her letter to Trump dated Sept. 21, Peirce called her time at the SEC “the honor of a professional lifetime,” argued the agency was in good hands with Atkins and Uyeda, and said a nation that “elevates freedom of thought, expression and action” unlocks the potential “of its people,” an ethos she argued ran through America’s securities markets.
“Maximizing people’s freedom to choose what is best for themselves and their families within sensible regulatory parameters designed to give them the confidence to transact with others is a delicate and vitally important task for the regulator,” she wrote.
In May, Regent University School of Law announced that Peirce would depart the commission to become an associate professor at the school in November. She originally joined the SEC in 2018, during Trump’s first term, and was reconfirmed in 2020 for a five-year term that ended in 2025 (commissioners can stay in office up to 18 months after their term expires).
During her tenure, Peirce became well-known for her advocacy of the crypto space, earning the moniker “Crypto Mom.” After Trump took office in January 2025, she began leading the newly established crypto task force and has worked with Atkins to forge a regulatory agency more friendly to the digital asset industry.
Peirce’s resignation leaves the agency with only two commissioners, and neither of them is a Democrat. Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler and Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga both resigned at the start of Trump’s second term, while Caroline Crenshaw resigned after Republican senators blocked her renomination during Joe Biden’s presidential term.
Under SEC rules, no more than three commissioners may belong to the same political party. Typically, the party in control of the White House will hold three spots on the commission (including the chair). Atkins succeeded Gensler as SEC chair last year, but Lizárraga and Crenshaw’s seats have not been filled.
According to an analysis by the law firm Holland & Knight, the commission can operate with two members (though a split between the two members, or a recusal by one for any reason, would make a decision impossible). During President Bill Clinton’s administration, two commissioners served, leading the agency to adopt rules allowing it to operate with only two members.
While long-term vacancies aren’t unusual, MarketCounsel CEO Brian Hamburger told Wealth Management earlier this year that it was unusual for there to be no commissioners from the party out of the White House.
Hamburger worried that “a visibility lopsided commission can feed perceptions that outcomes are more political than technocratic, which is the opposite of what investors and advisors want from a market regulator.”
The SEC did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.
