WASHINGTON -- Jim O'Neill, a former investor, critic of health regulations and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s deputy, is taking control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following a tumultuous week in which the agency's director was forced out.
President Donald Trump picked O'Neill to be the CDC's interim director, supplanting Susan Monarez, a longtime government scientist.
Monarez was the CDC director for less than a month. Her lawyers said she refused "to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts."
O'Neill takes over an agency rocked by firings, resignations and Kennedy's efforts to reshape the nation's vaccine policies to match his suspicions about the shots.
O'Neill said Friday afternoon in a social media post that he looked forward to working with CDC staff and "announcing additions to the senior leadership in the weeks ahead." He added that he would continue to serve as HHS deputy.
A former associate of billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, O'Neill previously helped run one of Thiel's investment funds and later managed several of his other projects. Those included a nonprofit working to develop manmade islands that would float outside U.S. territory, allowing them to experiment with new forms of government.
He has no training in medicine or health care and holds bachelor's and master's degrees in humanities.
O'Neill has kept a lower profile than Trump's other top health officials, all of whom joined the administration as Washington outsiders. He's also the only one with experience working at HHS, where he served for six years under President George W. Bush.
Those who know him say he'll likely be tasked with trying to calm the situation at CDC -- though it's unclear what, if any, independence he'll have from Kennedy.
"Jim O'Neill is a health care policy professional and I don't think anybody can accuse him of being anRFK Jr. sock puppet," said Peter Pitts, a former FDA official under Bush. "The question becomes whether the role of CDC director becomes a strictly paper tiger position, where the person only does what they're told to by the secretary."
O'Neill is not closely associated with Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again movement and its efforts against food dyes, fluoride and ultraprocessed foods.
He was not a major critic of public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, unlike Food and Drug Administration chief Marty Makary and several other Trump officials. However, he used social media to criticize FDA efforts to stop the prescribing of unproven treatments for COVID-19, including the anti-parasite drug ivermectin.
O'Neill has long-standing ties to the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. Like Thiel, O'Neill expressed disdain for many parts of the federal bureaucracy, saying it hinders advances in medicine, technology and other areas.