Chao was raised in Queens, New York, and on Long Island, and received degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Harvard Business School.

[7][8] Chao described her early life in America as a typical immigrant story, noting that "everything was foreign to us: the culture, people, language, traditions, and even the food.

Before being appointed to government work, Chao was a vice president for syndications at Bank of America Capital Markets Group in San Francisco, and she was an international banker at Citicorp in New York.

She is credited with returning credibility and public trust to the organization after a financial mismanagement scandal involving former president William Aramony.

[22] From 1996 until her appointment as Secretary of Labor, Chao worked at a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.[23] She was also a board member of the Independent Women's Forum.

[29] Of Chao's staff, Victoria Lipnic, Assistant Secretary for Employment Standards Administration, later became Member, EEOC and acting chair.

[30] In 2002, a major West Coast ports dispute costing the U.S. economy nearly $1 billion daily was resolved when the Bush administration obtained a national emergency injunction against both the employers and the union under the Taft–Hartley Act for the first time since 1971.

[32] Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Chao's Department of Labor disbursed grants to provide temporary jobs to assist in cleanup and restoration efforts in New York, as well as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's monitoring of health and safety of cleanup work being performed at the disaster sites including lower Manhattan.

Chao set up an emergency response hotline dedicated to the Gulf Coast region for people seeking benefits and worker protection information.

[37][38] The Department of Labor responded that the GAO investigation focused on individual complaints while the department remained focused on resolving complex and multi-employee complaints; from 1997 to 2007 the annual number of employees receiving back wages as a result of DOL action almost doubled and the dollar amount of back wages paid more than doubled.

[39] The Washington Post echoed that Chao's department was criticized by some for "walking away from its regulatory function" but also praised by others for providing "compliance assistance" and "helping companies abide by the law" rather than "punitive enforcement that … stifles economic growth.

1 explosion in Kentucky, where five miners died in May 2006;[44] and the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse in Utah, which killed six workers and three rescuers in August 2007.

[47] In 2010, the widows of the two men killed in the Alma Mine fire sued the federal government for wrongful death, citing lack of inspections, failure to act against violations, and conflicts of interest.

[48][49] "MSHA's review of the fire acknowledged significant lapses by inspectors, supervisors and district managers" at the mine but the agency did not admit liability for the negligent inspections.

[50][51] In 2013, the appeals court ruled that MSHA can be held liable "when a negligent inspection results in the wrongful death of a coal miner".

[62] In January 2015, she resigned from the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which she had joined in 2012,[63] because of its plans to significantly increase support for the Sierra Club's "Beyond Coal" initiative.

[71][72] In 2017, Chao announced the establishment of a pilot program to test and evaluate the integration of civil and public drone operations into the airspace system.

[74] In 2019, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an air carrier and operator certificate to UPS Flight Forward for drone deliveries to a hospital campus in Raleigh, North Carolina.

[79] He also helped with FAA's successful efforts to reform its regulations and restore the US lead in enabling the largest number of private commercial space launches.

The program is intended to consider the unique needs of rural transportation networks to meet national goals of safety, mobility, and economic competitiveness.

[90] The US Department of Transportation reportedly sought to cut funding and loan guarantees for domestic American shipping companies, shipyards, and shipbuilders.

The tweets were removed following an investigation by NPR that noted Chao was a U.S. citizen, was born in Taiwan, and that the PAC had failed to file required disclosures.

[95] The Transportation Department's inspector general cited numerous instances where Chao's office helped promote her family's shipping business.

[96] The inspector general asked the Trump administration's Justice Department in December 2020 to consider a criminal investigation into Chao, but the DOJ denied the request.

[105] In September 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform began an investigation into whether she used political office to benefit her family's business interests.

[108] On March 4, 2021, the Inspector General released their report regarding numerous ethics violations,[a][110] including using department resources for personal errands and for promoting her father's biography.

[126][127] From July 2022 onward, Trump had criticized McConnell's leadership on social media and directed "overtly racist" attacks at Chao, including calling her "Coco Chow".

[130] After winning the election, McConnell said, "The biggest asset I have by far is the only Kentucky woman who served in a president's cabinet, my wife, Elaine Chao.

[134] Chao's sister Grace is married to Gordon Hartogensis who served as director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a part of the Labor Department, in May 2019.

[145] Ruth Mulan Chu Chao returned to school at age 51 to earn a master's degree in Asian literature and history from St. John's University in the Queens borough of New York City.