By Milana Vinn and Alexandra Alper

NEW YORK, March 5 (Reuters) - Star technology investment banker Michael Grimes, who left Morgan Stanley MS.N to take up a senior role in the U.S. Commerce Department last month, is expected to lead the new U.S. sovereign wealth fund that was unveiled by President Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.

The discussions about Grimes potentially leading the efforts to create and spearhead the sovereign wealth fund are ongoing and no decision has been finalized, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the discussions are confidential.

The fund, whose income sources have not been previously revealed, is designed to be backed by revenue from tariffs imposed on foreign countries, the sources said, cautioning that the deliberations are at an early stage and plans around how the fund will be financed could change.

Trump has previously said the proposed new fund could be financed by "tariffs and other intelligent things." Revenue from tariffs could be provided by the so-called External Revenue Service, an agency Trump wants to create to handle income generated from the levies, one of the sources said.

The Commerce Department, Grimes and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Grimes made a name for himself at Morgan Stanley after leading several high-profile technology initial public offerings including those of Meta META.O, Uber UBER.N, and Airbnb ABNB.O. He famously moonlighted as an Uber driver to woo the company before its IPO in 2019 and advised Elon Musk on his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, which was rebranded X.

Grimes took on a role as a senior adviser at the Commerce Department last month, but his remit has not been clear. He spent more than three decades at Morgan Stanley, serving as one of the heads of global technology investment banking before his departure from the bank.

He has worked closely with Musk on deals involving his other companies, like Tesla TSLA.O. Morgan Stanley was the primary investment bank on the electric vehicle maker's stock market launch.

FUNDING SOURCES

The details, which have not been previously reported, highlight that plans for the sovereign wealth fund are beginning to take shape, amid questions about the feasibility of the creation of such an investment vehicle.

In February, Trump signed an executive order ordering the creation of a sovereign wealth fund within the next year, saying it could potentially buy the short video app TikTok.

If created, the sovereign wealth fund could place the U.S. alongside numerous other countries, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, that have launched similar funds as a way to make direct investments with government dollars.

Typically, such funds rely on a country's budget surplus to make investments, but the United States operates at a deficit. Its creation would also likely require approval from Congress.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency collects import duties, taxes and fees, with the money flowing daily into the U.S. Treasury's operating cash balance. For the fiscal year ended September 30, the agency collected $88.07 billion of these revenues, compared with $92.3 billion a year earlier and $111.8 billion in 2022 - a year that was marked by high COVID-era purchases of imported goods.

(Reporting by Milana Vinn in New York and Alexandra Alper in Washington; Additional reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Anirban Sen and Lisa Shumaker)

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