Sergio Gor, head of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, has quietly been at the center of President Trump’s effort to aggressively reshape the size of the federal government and stock it with loyalists.
Gor is a lesser-known figure to those outside the Beltway, but sources told The Hill he is a highly influential aide with strong ties to the MAGA movement. He is a close ally of Donald Trump Jr. and a fierce loyalist to the president.
As one Trump ally put it, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller shapes Trump’s policies, staff Secretary Will Scharf shapes who and what President Trump sees, and Gor shapes who serves in the administration.
“Sergio has led the effort to ensure committed, principled America First advocates staff the President’s government. He’s done a great job, and will continue to do so,” Vice President Vance said in a statement to The Hill.
Gor is a former aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a somewhat ironic twist given Paul’s current opposition to the massive reconciliation package containing key pieces of Trump’s agenda, as well as Paul’s recent sparring with Miller.
But Gor’s MAGA credentials are not in question. He co-founded a publishing company with Donald Trump Jr. that has published books by the president and conservative figures such as Charlie Kirk and senior Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro. Gor also led the pro-Trump super PAC Right for America.
Gor has maintained a mostly low-key profile, though he has been in the headlines as a central figure in the acrimonious split between the president and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who departed his role as a special government employee late last month.
Musk and Gor reportedly clashed in recent months, including at Cabinet meetings where Musk chastised Gor over personnel disagreements. Musk, who led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), had pushed for more access and authority for his top deputies.
Gor was also cited as an animating figure in pushing for the withdrawal of Jared Isaacman, a Musk ally who had been tapped to lead NASA. President Trump pulled the nomination shortly after Musk’s departure from government, citing “prior associations,” a reference to Isaacman’s donations to Democrats.
An administration official told The Hill that the decision to pull Isaacman’s nomination ultimately rested with the president. The official also downplayed talk of a wider feud between Gor and Musk. They noted that Gor oversaw the hiring of DOGE officials and argued the two were broadly aligned on the agency’s goals.
Gor has been instrumental in one of Trump’s biggest undertakings so far in his second term: reshaping the federal government and stocking it with loyalists.
DOGE made it its mission to drastically slash the number of employees working in the federal government, leading to a wave of layoffs at various government agencies that affected tens of thousands of workers. Some of those layoffs were allowed to go forward by the courts.
Gor, meanwhile, has been leading the Office of Presidential Personnel, which handles the recruiting, vetting, interviewing and hiring processes for workers across the federal government.
Trump’s first term saw some of his most controversial policies and impulsive suggestions undercut or rebuffed by Cabinet officials and appointees who disagreed with him, including one who penned an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times.
But those occasional guardrails have more or less been removed this time around, with Gor at the tip of the spear to ensure appointees are aligned with Trump.
Gor said shortly after Inauguration Day that all political appointee hiring decisions were going through the White House. Applicants were asked how they supported Trump during the 2024 campaign, among other questions that amounted to loyalty tests.
Hiring guidelines sent out by the Office of Personnel Management late last month include a question about how applicants would advance Trump’s executive orders and a request to cite examples of policy initiatives they find significant.
The result has been an administration that abides by the old adage that “personnel is policy,” with Trump loyalists largely in unison carrying out the president’s agenda at an aggressive and more synchronized speed than his first term.
“Sergio is a vital member of the team and he has helped President Trump put together an Administration that is second to none,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement to The Hill. “As a long-time advisor, there is nobody more capable of ensuring the government is staffed with people who are aligned with the mission to make America great again and work towards implementing the president’s agenda.”
Elon allegations put Vance, Patel on the spot
When Musk was on a social media tirade against Trump last week, he dropped what he referred to as the “really big bomb,” one that the Tesla CEO may have known would cause ripples with the president’s base.
Musk alleged last Thursday that Trump was named in documents related to the federal investigation of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Those documents, and Epstein’s death, have been a source of numerous conspiracy theories and wider fascination among Trump supporters.
That fascination has put officials, such as Attorney General Pam Bondi, under a microscope and prompted outcry from some in MAGA World who aren’t buying the administration’s insistence that there’s no nefarious plot to uncover.
It just so happened that as Musk was posting, two top Trump officials were taping appearances with influential podcasters whose audiences overlap with those interested in the Epstein case.
Vice President Vance was on Theo Von’s podcast, while FBI Director Kash Patel joined Joe Rogan. Both Rogan and Von are part of the “manosphere,” which comprises programming that appeals to young men in particular.
Vance learned of the since-deleted Epstein post in real time as Von, host of the “This Past Weekend” podcast, read it aloud.
“Here’s my basic reaction to all this stuff. First of all, like, absolutely not, Donald Trump didn’t do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein. Whatever the Democrats and the media says about him, that’s totally BS,” Vance said.
Patel, meanwhile, had already spoken at length about the Epstein files with Rogan when Musk’s post came up.
But Patel, who has already caught flak from some in the MAGA base for insisting Epstein killed himself, was not taking the bait to delve further into conspiracies.
“I’m not participating in any of that conversation between Elon and Trump,” Patel told Rogan. “I know my lane, and that ain’t it.”
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