The hearing was for Jim O'Neill, who was announced in November 2024 as a Trump pick, at the same time as Jay Bhattacharya was tapped to lead NIH (so Bhattarcharya's nomination largely overshadowed anything else.) The November 2024 news articles focus mainly on Bhattacharya and his controversial "fringe" views, while O'Neill is barely mentioned as the "biotech investor" who will serve as RFK Jr.'s deputy.

It's not so much that we can't figure out whether he is a good guy or a bad guy, it's that his nomination and confirmation hearings were largely hidden from the public eye. In short, we never got to the good/bad argument, because we didn't know about it. At all.

So who is he?