Amy Gleason: the low-profile Trump insider officially heading DOGE

Mystery solved — sort of. After weeks of intense speculation and contradictory chaos across the federal government, the White House this week revealed who sits atop the convoluted cost-cutting entity DOGE, even as both Elon Musk and President Donald Trump continue to operate as if Musk is the ultimate authority for the amorphous group. While that may be the case in practice, the administration's revelation this week that Amy Gleason, a little-known Trump associate, is DOGE's "acting administrator" has only served to heighten speculation as to how DOGE functions.

Gleason, who was reportedly unaware that the White House was planning to make her identity public, has a long history of working with Trump and his associates but has maintained a low profile throughout her time in the president's orbit. So who is Gleason, and why has she been placed in the eye of this Musk-fueled storm?

From USDS to DOGE

Gleason is a "career official" who worked for Trump's "digital service unit" during his first administration, The New York Times said. As part of that posting, she was assigned to coordinate with the Health and Human Services department, where she "worked on Covid response." According to a brief bio accompanying her 2020 TEDx talk "A 360⁰ View of Patient History," Gleason "began her career in nursing" and had "worked on several different electronic medical records applications." That was prompted, in part, by her daughter's rare medical condition and her subsequently discovering "firsthand how difficult being a patient and caregiver is in the health care system." Accordingly, Gleason has "long been an advocate" for curing juvenile myositis, the autoimmune condition that affected her daughter, said The Associated Press. She was initially assigned to the first Trump administration's COVID task force "because of her technology background," said CNN.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

A 360⁰ View of Patient History | Amy Gleason | TEDxBeaconStreetSalon - YouTube

Watch On

Gleason's LinkedIn profile has shown her serving as a "senior adviser at the United States Digital Service" — the official government agency that was transformed into and subsumed by DOGE to establish its legal foothold in the administration — since January, Politico said. It's "unclear" when she was appointed to the acting administrator role for DOGE, and "what exactly her relationship with Musk" is regarding running the group's operations.

Gleason's appointment to the upper echelon of DOGE's still-nebulous chain of command "came as a surprise" to her colleagues, CBS News said. Many of those coworkers learned of her elevated title only in the "past few hours" after her name was made public this week.

Longstanding ties to Trumpland

Before rejoining the Trump administration for his second term, Gleason remained in the president's extended orbit in the private sector, working at several health care focused startups helmed by fellow Trump insider and "key DOGE leader" Brad Smith, said The Washington Post. It was Smith who "looped" Gleason "into DOGE conversations" over the past few months, Fox News said. Smith, a "health care executive," had previously worked with former Trump adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, said The New York Times. He has been advising Musk's DOGE effort since "late last year."

Before her position had been publicly reported, Gleason's colleagues had identified her as a "liaison between legacy USDS, DOGE, and other agencies," said Wired, even if "little" was known about her "official role" at the time. This week, as Gleason's identity was being made public, nearly two dozen of her USDS-turned-DOGE colleagues resigned from their government roles. In a joint resignation letter, the group said that DOGE's work meant they could "no longer honor" their oaths to serve the Constitution made before their department was folded into Musk's effort.