White House clarifies leadership of the new cost-cutting agency
The Trump administration has officially confirmed that Amy Gleason is the acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency tasked with cutting costs by firing employees, canceling contracts, and reducing budgets.
Despite billionaire Elon Musk being a key figure in DOGE’s initiatives, the White House clarified that he serves only as a senior adviser to President Donald Trump and does not hold an official position within the agency.
Until now, the identity of the administrator remained a mystery, even though President Trump’s executive order last month required the appointment of an official who would report to the White House. The announcement came on Tuesday, the same day that over 20 former members of the United States Digital Service—now renamed the US DOGE Service—resigned in protest, criticizing Musk’s role in what they described as efforts to “dismantle critical public services.”
Who is Amy Gleason?
Amy Gleason, 53, is a healthcare technology expert who previously worked in the first Trump administration. She was part of the United States Digital Service from 2018 to 2021, contributing to the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She returned to the agency in January following Trump’s return to office.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Gleason runs a consulting firm, Gleason Strategies, and has been a longtime advocate for improving treatment for juvenile myositis, a rare autoimmune disease that affects her daughter. She spoke about the challenges of the healthcare system in a 2020 TED talk, emphasizing the need for technological and data-driven reforms to aid patients and doctors.
Gleason previously served as vice president of research at the Cure JM Foundation from 2014 to 2018 and co-founded CareSync, a Florida-based telehealth company. More recently, she has worked as the “chief product officer” at two healthcare startups in Nashville—Russell Street Ventures and Main Street Health.
Both companies were founded by Brad Smith, a healthcare entrepreneur who held key roles in the first Trump administration and has also been involved in the DOGE initiative. According to the Associated Press, Russell Street Ventures recently removed its website, though it had described itself as “an innovative healthcare firm focused on launching and scaling companies that serve the nation’s most vulnerable and underserved patient populations.”
Meanwhile, Main Street Health works with rural primary care physicians, providing them with data and resources to improve value-based healthcare. The company recently removed Gleason’s biography from its website, but archived records show she had led technology efforts for the federal COVID-19 response and collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
With the confirmation of Gleason’s leadership, the White House has emphasized that DOGE’s restructuring efforts will continue under her guidance, while Musk remains an adviser to the administration.
