President Donald Trump‘s nominee for director of the National Science Foundation is Jim O’Neill, a polarizing Silicon Valley tech investor with prior roles in the Trump administration and a proponent of ideas and practices that live on the fringes of modern science. His nomination has drawn praise from contemporaries and withering criticism from scientists and advocates alike.
The position of NSF Director has been vacant since April 2025, when former director Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned amid orders from the Trump administration to drastically cut the NSF’s budget and personnel. O’Neill was selected by Trump for the role in late February. A date for his senatorial confirmation hearing has not been set.
Previously, O’Neill was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, as well as the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from August 2025. During his double tenure, he contended with the worst measles outbreak in decades, with over 1,800 cases so far this year, with outbreaks still ongoing across the country.
O’Neill also authored a memo from HHS that called for a highly controversial change to childhood vaccination recommendations, sparking outrage in the scientific community. The move was in line with Kennedy’s long-time stance against vaccines, including running an anti-vaccine non-profit and earning money from vaccine injury lawsuits.
For his part, O’Neill has expressed skepticism about vaccines and has publicly opposed vaccine mandates. At the same time, he has insisted that he is “strongly pro-vaccine” and previously advised Rational Vaccines, a controversial organization dedicated to combating the herpes virus.
Kennedy called him “a critical piece” in HHS and highlighted O’Neill’s time spent as a Silicon Valley investor. “It will allow us to transform HHS into a superpower of technological innovation,” Kennedy said in June.
The White House, too, is behind O’Neill.
“Jim O’Neill spent over a decade in the private sector helping identify and finance cutting-edge technologies of the future,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement to Salon. “This experience and track record of success will help Jim do a phenomenal job as the next director of the National Science Foundation.”
Prior to joining the Trump administration, O’Neill spent more than a decade in leadership roles at hedge funds and venture capital firms led by Peter Thiel, the billionaire conservative megadonor. He was managing director at Thiel’s Clarium Capital and CEO of the Thiel Foundation, and co-founder of the Thiel Fellowship, which offers university students $250,000 to drop out and pursue entrepreneurial interests.
“You can be very smart and be very good in the financial world … But science has a different level of evidence, and it has a different interest in long-term benefits.”
O’Neill was also managing director of Mithril Capital, which provides funds to Thiel’s surveillance giant Palantir Technologies. He referred to Thiel as “my friend and patron” and the inspiration for his 2011 speech on tracking human rights abuses.
If confirmed for the director position, O’Neill will be the first head of the NSF that is not a scientist or engineer. Past directors have included physicists, chemists and computer scientists. That has drawn a wave of concern among science advocacy groups and researchers alike.
Diana Zuckerman, the founder and president of the National Center for Health Research, has worked in health policy research and advocacy in Washington, D.C., for more than forty years. She is concerned by O’Neill’s nomination and lack of scientific credentials is “problematic” and that O’Neill’s work at HHS and CDC is not exactly comparable to what he would be doing at NSF, likening HHS heads to “governors.”
“They’ve been people who know how to run programs, but not necessarily experts in the work of the agency,” Zuckerman explained. “NSF directors have been scientists, real scientists, and that’s important, because the integrity of NSF is the key to the agency.”
Zuckerman is also concerned about O’Neill’s ties to the financial world, which she sees as a potentially massive conflict of interest because of “the people he knows and the friends he has.”
“You can be very smart and be very good in the financial world,” she said. “But science has a different level of evidence, and it has a different interest in long-term benefits and not the sort of short-term, ‘get the price of a stock up and then sell it.’”
Dr. Zoey Thill, a volunteer for the watchdog group the People’s CDC, was blunt in her criticism of O’Neill, calling for him to be “exposed.”
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“We expect basic research done at NSF under his (or any Trump appointee’s) leadership would focus on commercialization prospects — what can make his buddies the most money — rather than what would be good for the rest of us,” Thill said in a statement to Salon.
Indeed, O’Neill’s past in the Silicon Valley tech scene converges with his chief scientific interest: extending human lifespan. From 2019 to 2021, O’Neill served as CEO of SENS Research Foundation, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit that conducts research into regenerative medicines. He was also a board member of ADvantage Therapeutics, a company that researches therapeutic treatments for patients suffering from neurodegenerative disorders, like Alzheimer’s.
O’Neill is an outspoken supporter of research into the controversial field of anti-aging medicine, with some promising therapies and proposed treatments that are nonetheless plagued by pseudoscience and misleading claims.
In a 2014 speech on reducing Food and Drug Administration regulations, O’Neill proposed that “immortality” in humans could be achieved in 40 years.
“If we invest wisely in life extension technologies, in 40 years, we’ll all be able to annoy our friends with complaints like ‘immortality almost never works,’” he said. In that same speech, O’Neill also called for the FDA to institute “progressive approval,” in which a new medicine or treatment is released after only proving its safety, not its efficacy.
“We should reform FDA so that it’s approving drugs after their sponsors have demonstrated safety and let people start using them at their own risk, but not much risk of safety. But let’s prove efficacy after they’ve been legalized,” he said.
“This is someone who only thinks in terms of maximizing industry profits, not what’s best for the public he’s supposed to work for.”
Kayla Hancock, director of Protect Our Care’s Public Health Project, slammed O’Neill for this position, saying he would not make “competent decisions” at the NSF. She also called his claims on longevity “unfounded.”
“This is someone who only thinks in terms of maximizing industry profits, not what’s best for the public he’s supposed to work for,” Hancock said in a statement to Salon.
Eric Verdin, CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, sees things differently. He knows O’Neill personally and shares his passion for combating age-related diseases. Verdin thinks he’s right for the role of leading the NSF, despite not being a scientist.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Verdin told Salon, “as long as you’re willing to respect the trade and its principle.”
Verdin recounts his interactions with O’Neill as very positive and is surprised by the criticism directed at him.
“He listens to scientists. He’s a very far-seeing type of individual, but he’s also rooted in science,” Verdin said. “He believes in the principles that make science move, which is evidence, and going one step at a time.”
For him, O’Neill is not overly dogmatic or politically compromised, and could be an effective director with the best intentions, who understands the necessity of trusting the scientific process.
“I always thought that he was listening to us as scientists, with respect and with understanding of the value of what we provide,” Verdin said.
Still, O’Neill’s future as director of the NSF has prominent scientific figures concerned, especially since the recent purging of its board members by the Trump administration and the slashing of its budget for 2027.
“The proposed appointment of Jim O’Neill as NSF Director — along with the president’s drastic proposed cuts to the NSF budget that supports U.S. fundamental research and his dismissal of the entire National Science Board — will severely weaken the U.S. in our competition with other nations,” Bruce Alberts, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said in a statement to Salon.
Alberts, an award-winning chemist, worries that the administration will not properly fund scientific endeavors, leading to economic setbacks with fewer advancements made. He also sees O’Neill as a political appointee.
“To insert political considerations into these processes not only wastes taxpayer money; it is the equivalent of throwing a monkey wrench into a well-operating machine,” Albert said. “Debilitating the NSF, as proposed, makes zero sense; it will only benefit our competitors.”
The NSF declined Salon’s request for comment.
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