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F.D.A. Commissioner Marty Makary Resigns After Weeks of Pressure
Dr. Marty Makary, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, resigned on Tuesday, a move Preside Trump acknowledged on Tuesday, after weeks of pressure and rumors that the president was planning to fire him.
Dr. Makary ultimately resigned over concerns about the administration’s decision to authorize fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, an action he opposed, according to four people familiar with the matter. Dr. Makary told those close to him that he could not in good conscience approve flavored vapes, given their appeal to young people, and would not do something he did not believe in.
His departure caps a tumultuous run at the helm of an agency that regulates medical treatments, vaccines and much of the U.S. food supply. Dr. Makary came to the F.D.A. as a reformer, instituting so many new initiatives that he became known — and sometimes mocked — for his white board on wheels, festooned with Post-it notes lining up announcements that he promoted on frequent television appearances.
But his efforts at times put him at odds with the powerful food, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries. In the process, he made a number of enemies in Washington and on Wall Street, including some biotech leaders, abortion foes, tobacco executives and eventually some members of the administration.
He also drew criticism from public health leaders who viewed him as pandering to anti-vaccine activists with the release of an unsupported memo claiming that there were deaths related to Covid vaccines. Criticism flared again when he allowed the renewed use of unproven peptides, or injectable compounds with uncertain effects, a policy favored by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“He has offended almost everyone involved in F.D.A. issues, which is not easy to do,” said Diana Zuckerman, the president of the National Center for Health Research, which weighs in frequently on F.D.A. decisions. “But it would still be a disaster if he is replaced by someone who appeals primarily to tobacco companies, anti-abortion activists” and pharmaceutical lobbyists, she added.
The resignation was first reported by Politico.
Kyle Diamantas, the F.D.A.’s top food regulator, was named the acting commissioner. Mr. Diamantas came to the agency from Jones Day, a law firm where he represented Abbott Nutrition, a leader in the infant formula industry. He has become a vocal champion for policies to remove chemicals from the food supply and increase transparency around food ingredients.
The most consequential clash of his tenure was over the authorization of flavored e-cigarettes, a step Dr. Makary resisted over concerns that fruity and candy flavors would lure young people to addictive vapes. The White House ultimately prevailed. Earlier this month, two fruit-flavored vapes were approved. And last Friday, the F.D.A. quietly issued a policy allowing them to be more widely marketed.
Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he wished Dr. Makary well.
“Marty’s a terrific guy, but he’s going to go on and he’s going to lead a good life,” Mr. Trump said as he left for a trip to China. “He’s a great doctor, and he was having some difficulty.”
Dr. Makary also faced repeated calls for his firing from abortion foes who accused him of dragging out the timetable for a study of the safety of mifepristone, an abortion drug, viewing the exercise as one that could support their efforts to restrict the drug’s distribution.
Dr. Makary, who was a Johns Hopkins University cancer surgeon and health policy researcher before entering government, attempted to play to Mr. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement, going as far as sitting in a frigid plunge pool with the wellness influencer and biohacker Gary Brecka. He also led popular efforts to authorize natural food dyes and change how people talked about hormone replacement therapy for women.
With the support of MAHA voters, Mr. Trump framed Dr. Makary as a bold reformer, someone who would right an agency that had “lost sight of its primary role as a regulator.”
Early on, Dr. Makary and Dr. Vinay Prasad — his handpicked director of gene therapies, stem cell treatments and vaccines — drew scrutiny when they restricted the criteria for prescribing Covid vaccines to people older than 65 or with a list of health concerns.
Dr. Prasad resigned under pressure last summer after he was targeted by the right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, in part over his crackdown on a drug company tied to several patient deaths. Dr. Prasad was later brought back, but left the agency again in recent weeks.
Dr. Prasad and his counterpart in the agency’s drug division rejected a number of new drugs for rare diseases, citing flaws in a company’s research supporting an approval. As Dr. Makary went on television to defend the rejections, frustrated biotech leaders and investors vented to the White House and Mr. Kennedy’s office.
“On vaccines and mifepristone, Makary rarely prioritized rigorous evidence,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor at Georgetown Law who studies the F.D.A. “Ironically, his one stand for high-quality science — on flavored vapes — created the friction with the White House that contributed to him losing his job.”
Dr. Makary also faced a series of challenges inside his agency. He started his work last year contending with a haphazard array of staff cuts led by Mr. Kennedy and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Some staff members vital to reviewing complex surgical devices, inspecting food manufacturers and monitoring drug safety were laid off.
Though some people were hired back, another wave of voluntary departures left the agency without more than 4,000 staff members, or about a fifth of its work force.
Dr. Makary ultimately became a champion for the agency’s staff, fighting to get authorization to hire about 3,000 employees. The process of recruiting and hiring has moved slowly, though, leaving staff members at the agency and those who watch it concerned about its future.
Nathan Cortez, a Southern Methodist University law professor who studies the F.D.A., said that finding a permanent replacement could be a major challenge.
“The new commissioner will have to walk a tight rope between what the administration wants — Trump and R.F.K. Jr. — and what federal law commands of F.D.A.,” he said in an email, adding: “Historically, the expectation is someone with an M.D. or PhD and real scientific chops. It’s a lot of pressure.”
Karoun Demirjian contributed reporting.
Texas has dethroned California as the state with the most Fortune 500 companies.
The Fortune 500 list ranks the largest U.S. companies by revenue. This year, 57 of the top companies are headquartered in Texas, compared with California’s 56. It’s a reversal from two years ago when the Golden State had the pole position.
The Lone Star State was quick to claim the victory.
“Texas is the undisputed headquarters of headquarters,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a news release responding to the ranking, which was announced Wednesday. “The world’s leading businesses invest with confidence in Texas because of our welcoming business climate, predictable regulatory environment, and skilled and growing workforce. People and businesses are choosing Texas because Texas works.”
California’s corporate haters say they try to avoid the state’s high costs, income taxes and strict regulations, but the western state is still a top money maker.
“California dominates on nearly every other measure: its Fortune 500 companies are the most profitable ($647 billion), most valuable ($20 trillion), and employ more people than any other state (2.8 million workers),” Fortune said in a news release.
Indeed, despite the naysayers, Californian companies have been leading the world in developing artificial intelligence technology as well as the latest in space and defense tech.
The state is home to nearly 400 “unicorns,” or billion-dollar startups — more than any other state, according to CB Insights. It also gobbled up nearly two-thirds of U.S. venture capital last year, with San Francisco Bay Area startups such as OpenAI leading the way, according to the business information platform Crunchbase.
Texas and California have been in a tug-of-war for the crown. In 2024, after a decade, California bagged the top spot with 57 companies on the list, while Texas and New York tied in second with 52 companies each.
Healthcare giant McKesson, and oil companies Exxon Mobil and Chevron, were the top three Texas companies on the list. Apple, Alphabet, and Nvidia took the top positions in California.
Tesla, which relocated to Austin from Palo Alto in 2021, ranked 43rd on the list. Other major Fortune 500 companies that left California included Oracle, Charles Schwab and Chevron.
California’s population exodus has yet to fully recover from the pandemic times in 2020. The state’s high cost of living and regulatory environment are often cited as reasons for residents opting to move.
More recently, California’s proposal for a one-time tax on billionaires prompted some, including Peter Thiel and Larry Page, to open new offices outside the state.
Some smaller companies are also leaving the state, but nearly the same number are being set up. From 2011 to 2021, the state lost a net 2% of its total of around 47,000 headquarters, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
“There is some indication of an uptick in headquarters leaving California, but it is really small in comparison to other firm trends,” said Sarah E. Bohn, vice president of the Public Policy Institute of California. “The rate of leaving is slightly higher among bigger firms.”
Bohn, in a recent report, cautioned that focusing solely on relocations overlooks the range of positive and negative forces driving headquarters activity and can misrepresent businesses’ desire and ability to operate headquarters in California and the broader impact on jobs.
Behind Texas and California was New York, home to 53 Fortune 500 companies this year. The fourth spot was tied between Illinois and Ohio, with 29 companies each.
Amazon was the top company on the list, ending Walmart’s 13-year reign at the top of the annual Fortune 500 companies list. Amazon’s 2025 revenue was $716.9 billion, compared with Walmart’s $713.2 billion.
Seattle-headquartered Amazon joined Exxon Mobil, General Motors, and Walmart as the only four companies to have ever held the top position since Fortune began publishing the data in 1955.
Together, the 500 companies on the list roped in $21 trillion in revenue and $2.1 trillion in profits last year, employing 30.5 million people worldwide.
Nearly 2,000 food and beverage workers at SoFi Stadium voted overwhelmingly Friday to authorize a strike just a week before the venue will stage the first World Cup game on U.S. soil in more than three decades.
Negotiations on a labor contract between Unite Here Local 11, the union representing the cooks, dishwashers, concession workers and bartenders at SoFi and, Legends Global, the stadium’s food-service operator, are expected to continue Monday despite the vote. But Kurt Petersen, the union’s co-president, said if an agreement isn’t reached workers will walk off the job and the 70,000 fans arriving for the June 12 match between the U.S. and Paraguay will be greeted by hundreds of picketers.
Union members have been working without a contract for a year and Petersen said Unite Here is demanding salary increases, protection against subcontracting and job loss through automation, and are protesting the collection of sensitive private information such as nationality and home addresses that FIFA, organizer of the World Cup, said it needs to accreditate workers.
Workers are also demanding the right to walk off the job if federal immigration enforcement enters the stadium and creates a reasonable fear for their safety. Ninety-six percent of the vote was in favor of strike authorization.
Legends Global, the stadium’s food-service operator, responded to the vote with a statement.
“Legends Global has presented progressive wage proposals to Unite Here Local 11 throughout our negotiations and remains confident an agreement is within reach,” it read. “While we expect a contract will be finalized in time, a contingency staffing plan is in place to ensure seamless operations and no disruption to fans. We remain committed to delivering an outstanding hospitality experience at the FIFA World Cup matches.”
That contingency plan would involve hiring replacement workers who would have to undergo the same detailed accreditation procedures demanded by FIFA, plus job training. SoFi Stadium is scheduled to play host to eight World Cup matches, including two of the U.S. team’s three group-stage games. The first of those is on June 12 when the U.S. faces Paraguay in its World Cup opener.
Petersen said the union is looking for “substantial increases” in hourly pay, to more than $30 an hour. Legends’ most recent proposal calls for wage freezes for some workers and a 25-cent hourly increase for cooks and dishwashers, the union said.
But perhaps the biggest sticking point is FIFA’s demand for workers’ sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers and fingerprints, to process background checks. Under California privacy laws, workers have the right to know exactly what personal information their employer collects, how it will be used, and who it will be shared with. Local 11 said its members fears such information, if collected, could be made available to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE.
According to Petersen, when workers were originally hired by Legends they submitted the documentation necessary for employment, and under the current collective bargaining agreement the company does not have the right to request it again for FIFA.
FIFA has refused to comment on the contract talks, saying they are “between Legends Global and Unite Here Local 11.” But its insistence on collecting personal information is something Legends cannot address during contract talks, which makes a resolution impossible.
FIFA said it was partnering with the governments of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the three countries in which the 39-day tournament will be played, “to enhance safety and security of all workers, staff, team members, vendors, journalists, volunteers, and spectators by mitigating potential insider threats. … Such name checks do not constitute pre-employment checks.”
All data collected during the name-check process, FIFA said, will be processed “in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws, and will be deleted by FIFA as soon as it is no longer needed for purposes of adjudicating requests for credentialed access to FIFA-controlled spaces.
TO All our colleagues at 60
FROM Lesley, Bill and Jon
We have had a hard time deciding whether to stay at 60 Minutes. We’re still deeply upset by the firings of Tanya and Draggan, strong leaders who everyone respected. As far as we can tell – because no explanation has ever been offered, they were expelled because they fought for our 60 Minutes values and stood up to protect our independence and integrity.
Newsrooms are not supposed to be run like dictatorships. Collaboration and argument are the way we have always worked at 60. Don Hewitt actually encouraged loud passionate advocacy for our pieces.
This goes for Sharyn, Cecilia and Scott as well, all at the top of the world of TV journalism who exemplified 60 Minutes’ ethos of tough questions and honest storytelling.
And Guy Campanile, an outstanding 60 Minutes producer whose advice on our stories was invaluable.
And Matt Polevoy, who ran our online operations, moved us onto YouTube, was working on developing 60 Minutes Podcasts and many other projects expanding our presence on the Web: vital and necessary for our future.
We want to express how sorry we are that these principled, fair and honest journalists were treated so shabbily, with such indecency. Tanya deserves to be celebrated, not cruelly cast off. Draggan too. It’s been heartbreaking.
But, we have decided to stay on.
We feared that our returning might be construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure. That is simply, categorically not the case.
Here’s why we’re are staying:
We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die.
We have been grieving because this whole mess has wounded and damaged the broadcast. We want to stay and fight, try to repair and preserve our reputation by continuing the Mike Wallace tradition of hold their feet to the fire as well as Morley’s brand of quirky off-kilter reports like his on why people in Finland like to tango!
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