Updated 1/21/25 at 3:47 pm ET with the announcement of the acting leaders at the Pentagon.
WASHINGTON — Hours after Donald Trump took the office of the president, the new administration has announced the acting officials who will guide the Pentagon.
With Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, still working through the Senate confirmation process, the day started with a lack of clarity about who would be serving as the acting defense secretary, as well as the acting heads of the three military departments. That confusion continued for several hours after the inauguration, with spokespeople for the Navy, Air Force, Army and Office of the Secretary of Defense unable to provide the names of the leaders of America’s military.
Roughly two hours and forty minutes after Trump’s swearing in, however, the White House released a list of its designated acting leaders.
Robert G. Salesses — deputy director of the Washington Headquarters Services, which manages the facilities, HR and security for the Pentagon itself — will be acting defense secretary until Hegseth enters the building. Salesses served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Integration and Defense Support of Civil Authorities during the first Trump administration. Reuters was the first to report his appointment.
For the Army, the White House announced that Mark Averill, currently the administrative assistant to the Secretary of the Army, will temporarily take over the top civilian spot. According to his online bio, he is a West Point graduate and has worked for the service in various posts since 2004.
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The White House further announced that Gary Ashworth would fill in as the acting Air Force Secretary, which oversees the Air Force and Space Force. Ashworth currently is performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for acquisition and previously served in the Air Force, according to his DoD biography.
Terence Emmert, a retired Navy lieutenant commander and aviator, will become the acting Navy secretary. Emmert is currently the director of DARPA’s Adaptive Capability Office and previously served in a variety of roles at the office of the secretary of defense. His LinkedIn indicates he retired from the Navy in 1999 following a 11-year career and returned to the Defense Department in 2009, where he has worked ever since.
There is a history of asking Senate-confirmed political appointees to stay on in the Pentagon and help with the transition. When Trump took over in 2017, for instance, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work was asked to stay in place, and he held that role for the first six months of the Trump term. In 2021, then-deputy secretary David Norquist stayed on for a month to transition to the President Joe Biden team, and the three services were led by the comptrollers held over from the Trump team until officials were confirmed.
However, the individuals selected are all non-confirmed appointees, a sign that those at higher levels in the department have exited along with the Biden administration.
Now the defense community waits to see if Trump will act on calls from supporters — including Hegseth — to remove top general officers. Among the names being closely watched are Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown.
In an unprecedented move, Brown’s predecessor, Gen. Mark Milley, today was given a preemptive pardon by Biden hours before leaving the White House to prevent him from being targeted for retribution once Trump took office. Milley, Trump’s choice for chairman, has emerged as a major critic of the new president.
“My family and I are deeply grateful for the President’s action today. After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights,” Milley said in a statement, according to NBC. “I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.”
Milley’s official portrait, hung just days ago, was removed from the Pentagon hallways shortly after Trump was sworn in.
Nominee Status
It is hardly unusual for nominees to take time getting to the Pentagon, although there is usually a push to get the defense secretary confirmed as quickly as possible to ensure continuity. For example, Jim Mattis was confirmed as defense secretary the same day as Trump’s first inauguration, with Lloyd Austin confirmed just two days after Biden took office.
Hegseth, a Fox News analyst and one of Trump’s first cabinet picks, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week for his confirmation hearing and could be in place at the Pentagon within days. According to SASC chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Hegseth will get a vote today out of the committee and likely a full vote in the whole Senate by the end of the week.
It is expected Hegseth will be confirmed among purely partisan lines — a rare sight for a defense secretary nominee, who usually achieves an easy bipartisan vote.
After Hegseth will come a series of hearings for other nominees. The first up appears to be Daniel Driscoll, an adviser to Vice President-elect JD Vance, to lead the Army in its top civilian spot. He is slated to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 23 for his confirmation hearing, a first step to getting that vote.
Hearings have not been announced for any of the other top defense nominees:
- John Phelan, a prominent financier and campaign donor, was announced as Trump’s pick to become Navy secretary on Nov. 27.
- Troy Meink, currently the National Reconnaissance Office’s no. 2 official, was announced as the nominee for the Air Force secretary role on Jan 16. The following day, Trump revealed that Matthew Lohmeier, a former lieutenant colonel in the Space Force fired from command in 2021.
- Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire investor and co-founder of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, has been nominated as the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
- Elbridge Colby, a well-known Washington voice on national security affairs who helped write the first Trump National Defense Strategy, was nominated as DoD undersecretary for policy.
- Michael Duffey, who served in several roles including at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the first Trump administration, was nominated as undersecretary for acquisitions and sustainment.
- Emil Michael, a former Uber executive who led the company’s expansion into Russia and China, was tapped to be undersecretary for research and engineering.
- Keith Bass, a retired Navy commander, was nominated as assistant secretary of defense for health affairs
While not an official DoD position, Monday also brought news that Vivek Ramaswamy would not be co-running the DOGE effort with Elon Musk after all. Instead, Ramaswamy will be launching a bid for governor of Ohio, according to Politico. DOGE has been closely watched by the defense community, as it has been tasked to advise the Trump administration on how to cut significant chunks of the federal budget.
By Ashley Roque, Michael Marrow, Justin Katz and Aaron Mehta