Washington — President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, according to three sources familiar with the selection.

Kennedy has a long record of criticizing vaccines, including spreading misleading claims about their safety.

He has vowed to combat an “epidemic” of chronic diseases and believes that large drug and food companies are to blame for a broad swath of ailments. Kennedy has claimed a number of health issues have worsened due to federal inaction, including autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, sleep disorders, infertility rates, diabetes and obesity. He has also urged removing fluoride from drinking water.

Kennedy’s odds of clearing a Senate led by Democrats would have been low, given his long record of what the party called “anti-science, fringe public health stances,” but with Republicans in the majority come January, Trump’s nominees will have an easier path to confirmation. 

Trump promised to let Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic and former environmental lawyer, “go wild” on issues relating to health, food and medicine. 

“I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines,” Trump said in the final days before the election. “The only thing I don’t think I’m going to let him even get near is the liquid gold that we have under our feet … sometimes referred to as oil and gas.” 

As a co-chair of Trump’s transition, Kennedy has been vetting a slate of staffers who could fill top positions throughout the Trump administration. He has said he hopes “to have every nutritional scientist” across the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture “fired on Day One.”

Kennedy, who faced a costly and time-consuming process to appear on general election ballots as an independent candidate, ended his longshot bid for the White House in August and endorsed Trump. 

Kennedy said there were three issues that convinced him to endorse Trump: free speech, the war in Ukraine and what he called the “war on our children.” He said processed foods, chemicals and obesity were destroying the health of children in the U.S. 

At an August rally with Kennedy, Trump vowed to establish a panel to investigate chronic health problems and childhood diseases, as well as establish an independent presidential commission on assassination attempts that would be tasked with releasing all of the remaining documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Kennedy is the nephew of the late president and the son of the late senator, attorney general and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. 

The new Department of Government Efficiency, a group created by President-elect Donald Trump with the task of identifying ways to cut federal spending and headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, is already taking resumes. 

The request for job applicants was posted Thursday by the new X account for DOGE, which despite its heady mission isn’t an official government department. In his statement on Tuesday announcing the effort, Trump described Musk and Ramaswamy’s role as providing “advice and guidance from outside of government.” 

It’s unclear where the funding for DOGE will come from or the size of its budget, as well as whether Musk, the world’s richest person, and Ramaswamy, who has an estimated net worth of $1 billion, will be paid for their efforts. The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request for information. 

In the meantime, DOGE is starting to hire, according to the post on X, the social media service (formerly known as Twitter) owned by Musk. The account already has 1.2 million followers on the platform. 

What qualifications is DOGE looking for?

The post didn’t disclose the specific educational or career experience it is looking for in applicants. Instead, it described the kind of person they want to hire: “We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”

It added that it doesn’t want “more part-time idea generators.”

How can people apply for a DOGE job?

The post said that interested applicants should send a direct message, or DM, to the account with their CV, although the DOGE account wasn’t open to messages when the job notice was first posted. 

“Off to a great start. ‘DM this account with an application’,” one person pointed out. “DMs not open.”

Even after the DOGE account opened to direct messages, not all X users could send their resumes because only verified accounts or accounts followed by DOGE are able to DM the account. The DOGE account currently doesn’t follow any other X users, and verification on the platform costs $84 a year.

Only the “top 1% of applicants” will be reviewed by Musk and Ramaswamy, the DOGE account added. The post didn’t specify how it will rank applicants. 

What does a DOGE job pay?

The post didn’t specify the salary range or benefits. 

What kind of response is the post receiving?

A mix of pointed questions, humor as well as support from fans of Musk and Trump. 

“Anything over 40 hours will be paid overtime right?” one person posted on X in response to the job post. 

Others posted tongue-in-cheek “qualifications,” with one person writing, “I’d love to join here’s my resume: – B+ in Science – JV soccer team (2 years) – Can eat >10 Oreos in one sitting – Owner of several Dogecoins – Can burp the alphabet – Can run fast (top 25% of class).”

Another touted his “104 IQ (4 points above highest score possible).”

Valentina Gomez, a Republican politician who posted a video of herself burning books in February, responded, “But I’m ready to cut & make a dent on that outstanding budget. TSI, IRS, ATF are the first to go.”