7xm Musk Cost-Cutting Effort Is Being Guided by Health Entrepreneur
The government-efficiency panel started by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy is being steered by a health care entrepreneur and former top health official in Mr. Trump’s first White House.
That official, Brad Smith, has been leading the nascent Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE. He has been effectively running it during the Trump transition effort, according to four people with knowledge of his role who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the role has not been announced. He has been in Palm Beach, Fla., as part of the largely undefined operation and traveled with Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy to Washington this week. Mr. Smith, a Rhodes Scholar, does not yet have a formal role.
Mr. Smith is working closely with Steve Davis, a longtime top lieutenant to Mr. Musk who frequently helps him with special projects. William McGinley, Mr. Trump’s first pick for White House counsel, is working for the DOGE on legal matters.
Those guiding DOGE are being closely watched given the ambitions and skepticism surrounding the cost-cutting project. The inclusion of Mr. Smith in leadership suggests that the team is preparing to focus in part on the nation’s health care system, where Mr. Smith has particular expertise.
Mr. Smith, who declined to comment, is close with Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, and has operated as a kind of policy handyman for Mr. Trump, taking on a variety of health-related roles in the former and future president’s orbit. He led an office at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that experiments with payment models for health services.
He became closely involved in the coronavirus pandemic response, helping coordinate “Project Airbridge,” a federal effort to fly medical supplies to the U.S. in the early months of the outbreak. He also sat on the board of Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s Covid-19 vaccine development program.
At one point, Mr. Smith took part in a campaign pushing the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the use of blood plasma to treat the virus.
Mr. Smith’s latest company7xm, Carebridge, announced in October that it would be purchased by Elevance Health in a deal reportedly worth $2.7 billion. He co-founded Aspire Health, an in-home palliative care company, with Bill Frist, a former Republican senator from Tennessee.