Elon Musk, one of President-elect Donald Trump’s closest confidants, revealed Wednesday his support for weight-loss drugs like Ozempic being made cheaper for the general public — in contrast with comments Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made.
“Nothing would do more to improve the health, lifespan and quality of life for Americans than making GLP inhibitors super low cost to the public,” Musk wrote on X. “Nothing else is even close.”
President Biden’s HHS said in late November it would be pushing plans to have weight-loss medications covered for those on federal benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
But given the short timespan left in Biden’s presidency, the future of the waistline-shrinking drugs will be left to the the incoming Trump administration, raising questions about who will make the final call.
A vocal opponent of Ozempic, Kennedy Jr. vigorously urged the next administration to “Make America Healthy Again” before his nomination as HHS secretary.
Kennedy, in an interview with Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld, scoffed at the hefty price tag of making Ozempic available to everyone who is overweight, claiming it would cost “$3 trillion a year.”
“If we spent one-fifth of that, giving three meals a day to every man, woman and child in our country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight,” the 70-year-old health guru said.
GLP inhibitors are a type of drug that help people regulate their blood glucose and insulin levels for diabetes, but Americans have been using the group of drugs, including Ozempic, for weight loss.
Musk admitted that his take on the drugs being cheaper could cause a stir.
“A lot of people will complain about this post, but I am right,” he added on X.
X personality Gail Alfar responded to Musk’s views by stating, “Elon Musk is correct, 40% of Americans suffer from obesity and 9% have a BMI over 40. This is super dangerous for our health as a nation. This needs to be fixed. GLP-1 receptor agonists are way too high priced for most of the people that need them.”
“Gail is right,” the richest man in the world replied.