DOGE Track

Sam Beyda

Analyst

Sam Beyda has been involved with DOGE’s activities since at least early February, but he has managed to somehow stay under the radar, with only a single news report linking him to DOGE activities at the Department of Labor. More recently, however, he has taken on a prominent role as the Deputy Chief of Staff at the CDC, after serving as a policy advisor in HHS. This is a pretty impressive move, considering he has no experience in public health and graduated from Columbia in 2023. Prior to DOGE, his only work experience was at a company (Day Three) that manufactured cannabinoids, whose parent organization is led by Beyda’s father-in-law.

Positions

Position Notes
DOL
Source
DOL c.2/13/25 unknown start type «No other info besides this report»
HHS
Sources
HHS date unknown Policy Advisor
CDC c.11/15/25 promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff

Events

Date Event
2/13/25
Source
DOGE staffers granted authorization to use a SQL client for databases file transfer software at Department of Labor, alarming cybersecurity staff that it could be used to remove data. The staffers named are Sam Beyda, Derek Geissler, Cole Killian, Adam Ramada and Jordan Wick.
c.10/25/25
Source
Sam Beyda contacts the Peaceable Primate Sanctuary to ask how many of the approximately 200 macaques it can adopt immediately from the CDC’s primate research operations and whether it would be able to adopt all of them by the end of the year.
c.11/07/25
Source
In a new capacity as Deputy Chief of Staff, Sam Beyda tells scientists at the CDC that it is time to wind down its primate research division. Despite the fact that CDC has an Acting Director, he presents himself as conveying the direct wished of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. here.
11/19/25
Source
The Department of Health and Human Services proposes 16 initiatives for the CDC to focus on as part of a restructuring and change in direction for the agency. This includes de-emphasizing Hepatitis B vaccination in favor of increased screening. Newly appointed deputy chief of staff Sam Beyda is in charge of 5 out of the 16 initiatives, despite only having graduated from college in 2023 and a lack of public health or leadership experience.
12/01/25
Source
After a Danish anti-vaccine researcher applied for a grant to do a controlled study about the Hepatitis B vaccine in Guinea-Bissau, the request was routed directly from the CDC Director’s office to the Grants office for funding, bypassing the concerns of agency scientists who found the experimental design to be poorly-constructed and immoral. Instead of listing scientists as approvers for the grant, the application only listed as reviewers Chief of Staff Sam Beyda and Stuart Burns, an anti-vaccine advocate working in the CDC Director’s office.

Open Questions

  • What has Sam Beyda been doing for most of this year before showing up at HHS/CDC?