For most of final yr, Calley Means, a high aide to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was advising on modifications to the American well being system whereas working a quickly rising wellness firm poised to profit from Trump administration well being insurance policies.
Records launched to The New York Times by an ethics workplace on the Department of Health and Human Services present that Mr. Means held between $25 million and $50 million in inventory within the firm, Truemed, by November, as he continued to function its president. For months, Mr. Means has ignored questions from Democrats in Congress about his funds, together with the extent of his stake in Truemed, and the way they associated to federal coverage.
Truemed helps folks purchase merchandise, together with $10,000 saunas and radiation-blocking underwear, with well being financial savings accounts that aren’t topic to federal earnings tax. President Trump broadened the pool of people that might use such accounts final summer time when he signed a wide-ranging regulation permitting an estimated 10 million further Americans to open well being financial savings accounts.
The data The Times obtained cowl a interval when Mr. Means labored as a particular authorities worker. In November he grew to become a everlasting full-time worker and, he mentioned, divested and resigned from Truemed.
“When I was asked to serve as an S.G.E., I worked to support wins like removing food dyes and flipping the food pyramid — never touching H.S.A. policy,” Mr. Means mentioned in an announcement. “When asked to join full time, I fully divested shares from the thriving company and nonprofit I built to incentivize healthier food.”
He mentioned that some folks thought he was “crazy” to depart the thriving firm he based, however that “the decision to support the Trump administration’s efforts to reverse childhood chronic disease is the best professional decision of my life and I have no regrets.”
Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, mentioned, “Calley Means complies with all ethics and conflict of interest requirements” and performs “no role” in coverage affecting well being financial savings accounts. Andrew Nixon, a Health Department spokesman, mentioned Mr. Means complied “with all applicable ethics laws and regulations.”
“Mr. Means has been an invaluable asset to Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration, advancing key priorities to improve health outcomes while strengthening nutrition and public health policy,” Mr. Nixon mentioned in an announcement.
In his particular authorities worker function, Mr. Means was permitted to preserve his stake in Truemed underneath ethics guidelines that additionally allowed him to bypass public reporting obligations however barred him from being concerned in policymaking associated to his monetary pursuits. He was solely required to file monetary disclosures when he joined the Health and Human Services Department as a full-time worker in November.
Having duties as an officer and high shareholder at a well being firm whereas engaged on federal well being coverage is an issue, mentioned Anthony Alfieri, a professor of regulation, public well being sciences and ethics on the University of Miami.
“Dual roles create divided loyalties and create an appearance of a kind of double game for personal interests and public policy,” he mentioned. “And that is as troubling for Americans, because it creates a sense of distrust and a sense that public officials are advancing their own interests over the interests of ordinary Americans.”
Mr. Trump has relied closely upon on particular authorities staff in his second time period, including Elon Musk and the enterprise capitalist David Sacks, who each had affect over areas pertaining to their enterprise pursuits. Such employees are anticipated to carry out “important, but limited, services to the government” and work for not than 130 days. Many of them have historically served extra slim roles as private-sector consultants on advisory boards.
In the Trump administration, these particular authorities staff have been given broad mandates to juggle the work of working companies whereas altering insurance policies that would have an effect on their ventures.
Mr. Means offered his stake in Truemed late in 2025 to the enterprise capital companies Andreessen Horowitz, which invests in a variety of well being and wellness corporations, and Bessemer Venture Partners, in accordance to an individual acquainted with the transaction. Such gross sales usually are not uncommon amongst enterprise house owners who divest after they go into authorities, mentioned Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer underneath President George W. Bush and a professor on the University of Minnesota.
Truemed announced late last year that it had raised $34 million in enterprise capital funds and had tripled its year-over-year income progress for the earlier two years. The fund-raising was accomplished earlier than Mr. Trump’s inauguration, a Truemed spokesman mentioned.
The monetary disclosures additionally present that Mr. Means labored till November on the board of End Chronic Disease, a nonprofit that employed a lobbyist late final yr to promote the HOPE Act, a invoice that additionally proposed expanding access to tax-advantaged savings accounts for medical bills. Mr. Means mentioned that he had no data of the lobbying and that it occurred after he resigned.
Truemed operates by enlisting on-line medical suppliers to provide prospects with so-called letters of medical necessity that attest to their want for merchandise like dietary supplements, health gadgets and cold-plunge swimming pools to stop or deal with medical circumstances. With these letters, the corporate tells folks, they will use well being financial savings or versatile spending accounts to purchase the objects.
The accounts permit folks to put aside a restricted portion of their earnings, with out paying federal earnings tax, for certified medical bills.
But the letters facilitated by Truemed generally misapplied medical analysis and contained incorrect or extraneous info, The Times found final yr. The Internal Revenue Service warned in 2024 that “general health and wellness” purchases have been “not considered medical expenses under the tax law.”
Truemed partnered last year with a meat company to assist folks purchase merchandise like ground beef and hot dogs with cash from tax-favored accounts.
Mr. Means’s monetary disclosure data, which he signed in September, additionally checklist a $40,000 talking price to be paid for showing subsequent month at Meatstock, a conference in Tennessee sponsored partly by ranchers and meat distributors. Mr. Means mentioned this month that he didn’t and doesn’t plan to settle for the price.
New dietary pointers launched earlier this yr by the Trump administration put purple meat close to the highest of the meals pyramid. While particular authorities staff are allowed to settle for earnings exterior of presidency service, Mr. Painter mentioned meat-related earnings would have created an look of impropriety for a particular worker or high adviser.
After Mr. Means divested from Truemed late final yr, he was not sure by ethics guidelines walling him off from insurance policies that would enrich the corporate.
In January, well being financial savings accounts emerged as a centerpiece of President Trump’s “Great Healthcare Plan.” In an Oval Office address, Mr. Trump mentioned his administration needed to restrict subsidies for individuals who purchase insurance coverage by the Affordable Care Act, furthering a coverage that in his second time period has left many with crippling premium increases. He known as on Congress to bolster well being financial savings accounts as a substitute.
“I want to end this flagrant scam and put extra money straight into the health care savings account in your name,” Mr. Trump said on the time, “and you go out and buy your own health care.”
The yr earlier than, Mr. Trump’s sweeping home coverage invoice expanded eligibility for well being financial savings accounts by permitting enrollees in sure Affordable Care Act protection plans to qualify.
Republicans have embraced the idea of well being financial savings accounts for many years, arguing that they’d give shoppers extra energy and convey stronger market forces to the nation’s well being system.
But many researchers argue that they overwhelmingly profit prosperous folks, who’ve extra to achieve from diverting cash into tax-privileged accounts and extra money to contribute.
“Health savings accounts are effectively a tax shelter for the wealthy,” mentioned Nicole Rapfogel, a senior coverage analyst on the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
In a sequence of podcast appearances, Mr. Means argued in favor of the accounts within the lead-up to Mr. Trump’s election in 2024. He called for steering medical spending away from federal well being care packages and into the kind of tax-favored accounts that allow discounted purchases by Truemed.
“There could be actually over a trillion dollars in HSAs if people max out their contributions,” Mr. Means mentioned on the podcast of the wellness influencer Dr. Mark Hyman in January 2024, including: “So we should have universal H.S.A.s, unlimited caps.”
