Elon Musk, RFK Jr. praise Trump's pick of Jay Bhattacharya for NIH director
Billionaire Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were among those who praised President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Stanford University medical professor and economist Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Tuesday.
"I am thrilled to nominate Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, to serve as Director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation's Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives," Trump announced.
Bhattacharya was co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, which condemned COVID-19 lockdowns as ineffective and harmful to public health. Signed by more than 15,000 medical and public health professionals, the document called for schools and universities to be open for in-person instruction and for low-risk young adults to work normally instead of from home.
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Bhattacharya welcomed the nomination, tweeting: "I am honored and humbled by President [Trump's] nomination of me to be the next [NIH] director. We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!"
I am honored and humbled by President @realDonaldTrump's nomination of me to be the next @NIH director. We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again! https://t.co/FrLmYznhfw
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) November 27, 2024
Bhattacharya and Kennedy, whom Trump nominated to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, had a meeting this week regarding their plans to reform the federal health bureaucracy, according to The Washington Post.
"I'm so grateful to President Trump for this spectacular appointment," Kennedy tweeted. "Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is the ideal leader to restore NIH as the international template for gold-standard science and evidence-based medicine."
Bhattacharya penned an op-ed earlier this month for UnHerd defending Kennedy and blasting the NIH leadership of Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins for what he described as "a massive suppression of scientific debate and research" despite their $45 million budget.
Bhattacharya suggested that Trump's decisive electoral victory was in part because of a political realignment that took place in the wake of the pandemic, which he said led to "a coalition that included disenchanted Left-liberals who rejected the centralized power of scientific bureaucrats and found an ally in Kennedy."
Bhattacharya has also been working closely with Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon whom Trump tapped to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as internist and former Florida congressman Dave Weldon, whom Trump chose to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to The Washington Post.
Musk, who Trump was tasked with helping lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, praised Bhattacharya's nomination, tweeting two American flag emojis under his announcement, accepting the nomination.
After Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, journalist Bari Weiss revealed that Bhattacharya had been secretly blacklisted by the social media company because of his views, noting that his tweets were prevented from trending.
"How the tides have turned," Musk tweeted Tuesday in response to an X user who noted that both Fauci and Collins once conspired to plot a "devastating published take down" of the premises of the Great Barrington Declaration, according to their emails.
How the tides have turned https://t.co/ecs93KZSwX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2024
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to [email protected]
