Trump's latest appointments hand Silicon Valley a win
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Last night's transition announcement on Jim O'Neill.
A final flurry of top-level appointments from President-elect Trump last night included Jim O'Neill, a former top aide to Peter Thiel, to be RFK Jr.'s top deputy at Health and Human Services.
Why it matters: The appointment was a win for Silicon Valley and part of a big night for Thiel, the tech kingmaker and GOP megadonor, the N.Y. Times' Teddy Schleifer points out.
Driving the news: O'Neill, who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week, "was pushed by some members of the Silicon Valley elite for the department's top position, but lost out to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.," Schleifer notes.
- O'Neill's appointment "was discussed in multiple group chats on Signal populated with Silicon Valley executives," The Times reported earlier.
Jay Bhattacharya, named last night to be director of the National Institutes of Health, has been a friend of Thiel's since their undergraduate years at Stanford, per The Times.
- The pick puts a vocal skeptic of COVID lockdowns in charge of the federal medical research agency — giving a prominent voice to Republicans who thought the strict measures at the height of the pandemic were misguided, Axios' David Nather reports.
Trump last night filled out his economic team with international trade attorney Jamieson Greer as U.S. trade representative (USTR), and Kevin Hassett as director of the White House National Economic Council.
- Greer previously was chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer, Trump's former USTR, who is deeply skeptical of free trade. Greer is a partner at the King & Spalding law firm in Washington.
- Hassett, 62, served in the first Trump term as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Go deeper: Trump administration 2.0: Tracking his Cabinet, White House picks
