FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, resigned on Tuesday. Agency employees learned of the news the same way we did: through the media. First, rumors of an impending ouster were leaked to the mainstream media via anonymous administration officials last week. During that trial balloon phase, President Trump said that Makary "was having some difficulty." On Tuesday, Makary's departure was finally reported as a scoop by Politico. A post by President Trump on Truth Social followed the news.
But according to multiple HHS sources who spoke with Inside Medicine, the thousands of FDA employees that Makary led since his confirmation in 2025 have yet to receive official word on his departure. No email from Makary. No formal statements from a deputy or any member of the Trump administration. No town hall. No all-hands meeting. Nothing.
On Thursday, however, FDA employees received their first real indication from the inside that their beleaguered boss was actually gone. Makary's portrait had been unceremoniously removed from the lobby of an FDA headquarters building in Silver Spring, Maryland. Only an empty picture frame had been left behind. The above photograph, shared with Inside Medicine by the career FDA scientist who took it, was captured Thursday afternoon. (The original image was cropped and scrubbed of metadata to protect the source.)
