• McDonald's is offering $1 Egg McMuffins on its app on Sunday to celebrate the product's 50th year in the market.
• A company executive said McDonald's would not add surcharges to its egg products.
• Egg prices hit a record high in the US in January, with a dozen large Grade A eggs costing an average of $4.95.

As the food industry grapples with the skyrocketing price of eggs in the US, McDonald's is going the other way — and selling $1 Egg McMuffins.

A Tuesday news release on McDonald's website said that on Sunday, customers can get an Egg McMuffin or a Sausage McMuffin with Egg for $1 on its app.

The release said the promotion is being held to celebrate the Egg McMuffin's 50th birthday — the product was introduced in the US in 1975.

The company's North America impact officer, Michael Gonda, wrote a LinkedIn post on Tuesday about the deal. Referencing egg prices, Gonda said that customers "definitely WON'T see McDonald's USA issuing surcharges on eggs."

McDonald's $1 deal comes as egg prices in the US have soared, partly due to supply chain issues stemming from an H5N1 bird flu outbreak in the US.

The average price of a dozen large Grade A eggs in the country hit an all-time high of $4.95 in January.

Given the short supply of eggs, supermarket chains have seen their egg cartons sell out minutes after store openings. Some, like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Costco, have also imposed limits on the number of cartons each customer can purchase.

Restaurant chain Waffle House announced earlier this month that it would start including a $0.50 surcharge on each egg it sold.

Shake Shack's CEO, Rob Lynch, said on Thursday that restaurant chains with big breakfast businesses might dial back on eggs and offer more beef and chicken products instead.

McDonald's McMuffin deal is smart, marketing and branding experts say

Dipanjan Chatterjee, a vice president at Forrester, a New York-based market research company, told BI that the deal fits right into McDonald's value strategy, which includes its $5 meal deals and $1 items.

Chatterjee said that with egg prices hitting all-time highs, marketing a "$1 value item" that uses eggs "may seem like an odd choice."

But it's more of an opportunity — because McDonald's now has a chance to position itself as a company that "prioritizes its customers over profit," Chatterjee said.

The move is "likely to pay off handsomely for McDonald's," said Mário Braz de Matos, the cofounder of the Singapore-based branding consultancy agency Flying Fish Lab.

"McDonald's doesn't just stand for fast food, it also stands for value," he said. "In good times, it matters, but in harder economic climates, it makes this particular aspect of the brand more attractive to consumers."

Alexandra Leung, the founder of Monogic, a food-and-beverage marketing and PR agency in Singapore and Hong Kong, told BI that while the deal will be attractive to attract cost-conscious consumers, its real value isn't in the sales bump, but in "digital customer acquisition."

"I think that the measure of success for this promotion might be better evaluated through metrics like app downloads and digital engagement rather than sustained McMuffin sales post-promotion," she said.

Representatives for McDonald's did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.

• Elon Musk said he wants to "send another email" to federal workers to get them to account for what they do.
• The White House said it received over a million responses, less than half of the entire government.
• President Donald Trump said that sending another email is a "good idea."

Elon Musk said on Wednesday that the Department of Government Efficiency will "send another email" to federal workers asking them to summarize their accomplishments.

"You know, we got a partial response. We are going to send another email," Musk told reporters while attending President Donald Trump's first cabinet meeting.

On Saturday, the Office of Personnel Management emailed federal employees, asking them to submit a list of what they've achieved by 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday.

Musk said on Saturday that failure to respond by the deadline "will be taken as a resignation."

Later, on Monday, Musk said that employees who have yet to respond will be given "another chance," but "failure to respond a second time will result in termination."

Musk's email request sparked confusion across the government. At least eight agencies, including the Department of Defense and State Department, told their workers not to respond to OPM's email.

The White House said on Tuesday that more than one million workers responded to the email, less than half of the entire federal workforce.

"I wouldn't say that we are thrilled about it," Trump said of the remaining federal workers who did not respond during Tuesday's press conference.

"Maybe they are going to be gone. Maybe they are not around, maybe they have other jobs," Trump added.

Trump also said at the same press conference that he thinks Musk's plan to send a follow-up email is a "good idea."

"You got a lot of people that have not responded, so we are trying to figure out, do they exist? Who are they? And it's possible that a lot of those people will be actually fired," Trump said.

Trimming the federal workforce has become one of Trump's priorities in his second term.

Last month, the Trump administration gave federal employees from January 28 to February 6 to accept a buyout offer if they did not want to work in his administration. A spokesperson for the OPM told Business Insider on February 6 that over 40,000 workers took the buyout.

Then, on February 11, Trump signed an executive order to limit federal hiring. The order said that each federal agency can only hire one new employee if four employees leave. The restriction does not apply to jobs related to public safety, immigration enforcement, or law enforcement.

"There are too many federal employees. Excluding active-duty military and Postal Service employees, the federal workforce exceeds 2.4 million," the White House said in a fact sheet about the order.

Representatives for the White House and DOGE did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

• The Supreme Court halted a lower court's order for Trump to release USAID funds.
• Chief Justice John Roberts granted the stay but provided no reason for the decision in the ruling.
• This stay gives the Supreme Court time to evaluate the case and decide whether the Trump administration must release funds.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Wednesday night that halted a lower court's order for President Donald Trump to release funding for the US Agency for International Development.

In its February 26 ruling, the SCOTUS blocked a court order from District Judge Amir Ali related to two cases brought against the Trump administration by aid organizations including the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Global Health Council.

Ali's ruling on the cases would have compelled the Trump administration to release foreign aid dollars to grant recipients and USAID contractors by midnight on Wednesday.

But the SCOTUS halted Ali's decision after attorneys for the Trump administration on Wednesday said in a court filing that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has already "made a final decision" on what organizations to award funds to.

Sarah Harris, the acting solicitor general, appealed to the SCOTUS on Wednesday to vacate the lower court's order. In her filing, Harris said that the "district court's imminent and arbitrary deadline makes full compliance impossible."

Harris added that the lower court's order required the administration to disburse "nearly $2 billion by 11:59 p.m."

"These payments cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the Court and would instead take multiple weeks," Harris wrote.

Chief Justice John Roberts granted the administrative stay but provided no reason for the decision in the ruling. Roberts has given the plaintiffs who sued the administration until Friday to respond.

The SCOTUS' stay now gives the court time to evaluate and rule on the Trump administration's request.

USAID was one of the first targets of the Department of Government Efficiency.

The cuts to USAID come after Trump, in a January 20 executive order, called for a 90-day freeze on foreign aid. That executive order and other actions have affected thousands of US workers.

Judges other than Ali have made rulings that slowed the Trump team's attempts to dismantle USAID.

On February 7, Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary restraining order that paused the administration's USAID staff reductions. But USAID suffered a major court loss on February 21 when Nichols allowed headcount cuts to go ahead, reversing his previous order.

In 2024, USAID distributed close to $32.5 billion in aid, primarily to causes in Africa and the Middle East.

The Trump administration is cutting 92% in foreign assistance-related grants to save nearly $60 billion as part of budget cuts drive across all federal agencies, the State Department confirmed on Wednesday night.

The big picture: It plans to terminate nearly 10,000 contracts and grants given out by the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), per a Wednesday court filing from administration attorneys.

• It's the administration's latest effort to cap U.S. spending abroad, after a federal judge this month ordered the administration to resume $1.9 billion in foreign aid payments — which the Supreme Court temporarily paused on Wednesday night.
• The impacts of the freeze on aid have been felt by organizations across the globe, as has the upheaval USAID, despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing waivers for "life-saving humanitarian assistance programs."

Driving the news: Nearly 5,800 USAID awards and another 4,100 from the State Department will be cut, the filing states.

• Some 500 USAID awards and about 2,700 State Department ones will remain.
• "USAID evaluated 6,200 multi-year awards with $58.2 billion in value remaining," a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Zoom in: The State Department conducted a 90-day review of foreign assistance at the State Department and USAID that saw it examine 9,100 grants valued at $15.9 billion, the Washington Free Beacon first reported.

• "At the conclusion of a process led by USAID leadership, including tranches personally reviewed" by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the spokesperson said "nearly 5,800 awards with $54 billion in value remaining were identified for elimination as part of the America First agenda."

What we're watching: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted a stay and requested aid groups that sued the administration respond by 12 noon Friday ET.

• Meanwhile, the State Department and USAID is set to undergo a process in consultation with Congress to reform the way the U.S. delivers foreign assistance.

Go deeper: Trump admin has to pay foreign aid invoices, judge in USAID case says

The Supreme Court seemed receptive to a woman's argument Wednesday she was discriminated against at work because she is heterosexual.

Why it matters: A ruling that allows the woman, Marlean Ames, to pursue the claim would open the door for men, white people, and heterosexual people to sue for job discrimination in the future.

• The court's receptivity to Ames' case comes as the Trump administration has purged DEI across the government, triggering legal fears for corporations, schools, and local governments across the country.
• Ames' case also comes in the shadow of the court's 2023 ruling that overturned the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

What they're saying: The court's conservative supermajority and at least a few of the liberal justices seemed open to hearing the case.

• "We are in radical agreement," Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said about the court's consensus that the same legal test should apply to all discrimination claims — including ones from straight, white, and male workers.

Zoom in: Ames was an employee at the Ohio Department of Youth Services who filed a job discrimination lawsuit in 2020 claiming that she was discriminated against in favor of gay co-workers.

• In one instance, she claims that she was removed from her job as an administrator in favor of a younger gay man.
• In another, she said she was unfairly passed over for a promotion in favor of a gay woman who was less qualified.

Context: Almost half of US appeals courts require that members of majority groups (heterosexual, in this case) claiming discrimination meet an additional burden of proof that their employer is an "unusual" case of discrimination against majorities in what's known as the "background circumstances standard."

• Before Ames' suit went to trial, lower courts ruled against her, finding that she was unable to meet that standard. Ames argues that the standard is unconstitutional.
• Conservative legal groups, the Biden administration, and the Trump administration have all supported Ames' argument.
• Ashley Robertson, a lawyer for the Trump administration, said on Wednesday that the underlying appeals court's ruling was essentially, "Tell me your race, and I will tell you how much evidence you need to produce."

The other side: The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund argued in a friend-of-the-court brief in the case that different standards were appropriate for majority and minority groups because minorities are historically the target of discrimination.

The White House still plans to implement 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico next week, at least for now — despite comments from President Trump on Wednesday that raised hopes of another delay.

Why it matters: The Trump administration has announced a slew of tariffs that could take effect on their respective deadline, or ultimately be pushed off — a prime backdrop for confusion.

The intrigue: That confusion was on full display in the immediate whipsaw in financial markets.

• The prospect of another delay for the 25% tariffs outlined in a White House executive order earlier this month — which had already been paused for 30 days — sent the U.S. dollar sharply lower against the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso, before recovering.

Catch up quick: Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the 25% tariff on imports from North American allies would take effect on April 2.

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick quickly added that the "big transaction" would be April 2, but the "fentanyl-related" tariffs would be re-evaluated at the end of the 30-day pause on March 4.

Context: April 2 is the deadline for reciprocal tariffs that Trump previously announced, a senior White House official clarified to Axios.

• That official added that the 25% tariffs specific to Canada and Mexico were still on pause until next week, as originally thought. The administration has not made a decision whether to extend that pause or not.
• Lutnick told reporters that the Canadian and Mexican officials had to "prove to the president" that they had made progress on tighter border controls.

What to watch: The Commerce Department was previously ordered to draw up plans to impose tariffs on nations that the administration decides has unfair trading practices, a report due on April 1.

• That would allow Trump to put any tariffs in place the following day. Canada and Mexico could get hit in this order, too.

That is separate from another order that raises tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25%, set to take effect on March 12.

• Trump said Tuesday that the Commerce Department would investigate whether to slap tariffs on copper imports.
• Trump on Wednesday told reporters that the administration was also looking into tariffs on European imports, particularly autos — though it was unclear if that was a new announcement or would come with the pending Commerce study.
• He's also hinted at future tariffs on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, cars and lumber, but without setting any dates.

The bottom line: So far the Trump administration has implemented, not just announced, tariffs of 10% on all imports from China.

• If the administration makes good on some or all of its other tariff threats, keeping up with Trump trade policy might get that much harder.

• In a Wednesday memo, Trump administration officials advanced a plan for federal staff reductions.
• The memo said departments across agencies should prepare to cut staff and reorganize by March 13.
• Federal workers told BI they're frustrated, but not surprised, by the planned restructuring.

President Donald Trump's administration officially announced its plan for federal staff reductions in a Wednesday memo, telling agencies to prepare to cut staff and reorganize their departments by March 13.

Federal workers who spoke to Business Insider after the memo was announced said the move was "crazy and illogical." Still, some were determined to continue working until they were removed from office.

The memo, sent by the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, did not identify specific targets for cutbacks, which they described as advancing the White House DOGE office efficiency initiatives. However, during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump suggested as an example that as much as 65% of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency could be cut.

Representatives for the White House, OPM, and OMB did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

"I think what is going on is unfair to us. I have been told my job is exempt, but I truly don't believe it," an employee from the Department of Veterans Affairs said. "I know that we are shorthanded but also don't trust the government or my supervisors here. I have seen nothing in writing. That scares me also."

The memo outlines a timeline for most agencies — with exemptions for federal law enforcement, military, border security, and US Postal Service employees — to prepare and execute a layoff and reorganization strategy. Agencies must submit their restructuring plans by March 13 and "outline a positive vision for more productive, efficient agency operations" by April 14, with an implementation deadline in September.

It also requires field office operations to be consolidated or closed, which one employee of the Social Security Administration said would impact frontline offices that handle claims and issue Social Security cards, as well as disability hearing offices that handle appeals of unfavorable decisions in disability cases.

"So, the people who complain about long wait times and nobody answering the phone are talking about those entities, maybe there are a lot of layers of bureaucracy above us, but those exist to provide support for us frontline people," the Social Security Administration employee told BI. "This is crazy and illogical, motivated by a blind, stupid hatred of the Public Sector as a whole."

An Internal Revenue Service employee told BI that "it will take years, if not decades, to fully recover" from the federal government cuts.

"Americans are going to feel this very deeply," they said. "Services are going to be nonexistent."

An employee from the Department of Housing and Urban Development said they're prepared to be moved to a different department after a meeting with their supervisor about the memo.

"There's so much confusion — respond to the productivity email, don't respond, and now being told to get ready to move departments — I see how this Elon tactic can mentally drain you because this week was so hard to log in and be productive," the HUD worker told BI.

The restructuring memo comes just days after the White House DOGE office sent a weekend email asking all federal employees to list what work tasks they had accomplished last week, prompting confusing among some employees about how and whether to reply outside their chain of command.

While the confusion created by the emails and subsequent conflicting guidance from department heads has caused some federal workers who previously spoke to BI to reconsider their work in the government, others say they're resolved to stick it out.

"I've never seen morale so low in my 18 years of service," an employee from the Bureau of Reclamation told BI, adding that they "believe we are witnessing the final days" of their agency.

Still, they said they see their department's work protecting water resources as essential for the country and have no plans of stopping unless they're forced out of public service.

"They'll have to fire me," they said.

• The US imposed sweeping export controls on China around high-end chips in 2022.
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said China revenue-percentage was double what it is now pre-export controls.
• The CEO told CNBC "it's hard to tell" if export controls are effective regarding innovation.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is unsure if export controls against China are effective national security measures for the US amid the artificial intelligence race. However, they've certainly hurt the chipmaker's business abroad.

"It's hard to tell whether export control is effective," Huang said in a CNBC interview on Wednesday. The CEO was responding to a question about whether the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek and its latest model showed there are workarounds against the US-imposed sanctions on semiconductors.

"Our percentage revenues in China before export controls was twice as high as it is now," the CEO said, adding that competition from China remains stiff with companies like Huawei and that software will continue to innovate.

"I think that ultimately, software finds a way. Maybe that's the easiest way of thinking about it," he said. "Whether you're developing software for a supercomputer, or software for a personal computer, or software for a phone, or software for a game console — you ultimately make that software work on whatever system that you're targeting and you create great software."

Since the US implemented export controls on semiconductors in 2022 — and tightened those restrictions in 2023 — Nvidia's revenue from China has taken a significant hit.

For the fiscal year ending in January 2023, Nvidia's China business made up 21% of the company's total revenue. For the same fiscal year ending in January 2025, revenue from China made up about 13% of Nvidia's overall revenue.

An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment.

Despite the export restrictions and a brief shock to the chipmaker's stock after DeepSeek unveiled its R1 reasoning model, Nvidia reported another strong quarter on Wednesday, growing total revenue to $39.3 billion — 78% year-over-year increase from $22.1 billion.

Nvidia saw a short sell-off following the DeepSeek release in January. In a single day, it erased nearly $600 billion of its market cap, putting the company's valuation at about $2.4 trillion.

The company has since recovered its market-cap loss, currently standing at a $3.22 trillion valuation.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday night temporarily paused a lower judge's order that would've required the Trump administration to restart $1.9 billion in foreign aid payments by midnight.

Why it matters: In the first case the Supreme Court has intervened in since the Trump administration moved to overhaul the federal government and make drastic budget cuts, Chief Justice John Roberts granted a stay and requested aid groups that sued the administration to respond by 12 noon Friday ET.

• Last week, the high court declined to immediately intervene in a lower court decision to block the administration from firing Hampton Dellinger, the head of independent watchdog agency the Office of Special Counsel, postponing its decision until the lower court's ruling expired.

Driving the news: U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali had given the administration until 11:59pm Wednesday to resume payments for contracts and grants related to foreign aid work contracted by the State Department and USAID.

• Acting solicitor general Sarah Harris asked the justices to vacate the midnight deadline, which she called an "arbitrary timeline."
• Justice Department lawyers said in a filing earlier Wednesday that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals moved to dismiss that "regardless whether this Court stays the district court's order, agency leadership has determined that the ordered payments 'cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the' district court."

Go deeper: Courts become the final guardrail against Trump

Editor's note: This article has been updated with more details on the leadup to the order signed by Chief Justice John Roberts.

• Intuitive Machines, Firefly Aerospace, and ispace are all on their way to attempt a moon landing.
• Three private missions at once is notable, and it's just the beginning of the moon opening for business.
• Here's why three companies are flying to the moon right now.

Three companies are flying missions to land on the moon right now, in the early stages of a mad dash for lunar wealth.

The moon may not be Mars-obsessed Elon Musk's favorite space destination, but many other entrepreneurs see it as an untapped economic opportunity.

That's why two Texas-based companies and one Japanese firm are flocking to the moon this month.

All three missions were launched aboard SpaceX rockets.

None of them are carrying human crews, but they all lay the groundwork for more complex operations in the future as the moon opens for business.

Intuitive Machines wants to mine the moon

The Texas-based company Intuitive Machines launched its second moon-landing mission, called IM-2, on Wednesday.

The company became the first commercial enterprise to land on the moon a year ago, but the new mission is taking its ambitions further. The mission includes a rover and a hopper, which carry experimental technology for GPS on the moon and a small drill to test the technology needed to one day mine minerals and ice beneath the lunar surface.

Water ice on the moon could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel, while minerals like titanium or rare earth elements used in smartphones and computers could be sold back on Earth.

"The whole package of this mission is about prospecting," Steve Altemus, the CEO of Intuitive Machines, told Business Insider in December.

He added that eventually, he hopes to mine rare materials on the moon and bring them back to Earth.

Firefly Aerospace is testing lunar dust for NASA

For now, Intuitive Machines is the only company to ever successfully land softly (that is, without crashing) on the moon. Another Texas company, Firefly Aerospace, is gunning for second place this weekend.

Firefly's Blue Ghost mission is set to attempt its first moon landing on Sunday.

"I think a lot of us will be holding our breath, you know, lighting a candle," Ray Allensworth, the director of Firefly's spacecraft program, told BI.

If Blue Ghost succeeds, it will run experiments on the lunar surface for about two weeks, which is a full lunar day.

All in all, the spacecraft is carrying 10 payloads for NASA, mainly focusing on "what the surface of the moon looks like or feels like, trying to figure out the impacts of the regolith, how the dust interacts with materials, the temperatures under the surface, stuff like that," Allensworth said.

Japan's ispace wants people to live on the moon

Both Texas companies' moon landers are funded in part through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

The third mission en route to the moon, though, is from the Japanese company ispace.

The company's Hakuto-R spacecraft previously tried to land on the moon in 2023, but ispace reported that the lander had miscalculated its altitude when it detected an unexpected crater rim on the lunar surface, causing it to plummet and crash.

Ispace is trying again with a new mission carrying a lander and a micro-rover. The mission, called M2, launched aboard the same Falcon 9 rocket as the Firefly Blue Ghost spacecraft on January 15. M2 is taking a more leisurely route to the moon, though, with its landing set for May or June. The new lander is named RESILIENCE.

Ispace touts a future where the moon and its water resources support "construction, energy, steel procurement, communications, transportation, agriculture, medicine, and tourism."

The ispace website also advocates for permanent human residence on the moon, saying that "by 2040 the moon will support a population of 1,000, with 10,000 people visiting every year."

It's going to take a lot more moon missions to bring that vision to life. For now, for all three missions, just sticking the landing would be a huge achievement.

• An unvaccinated child in Texas died from measles, with statewide vaccination rates trending down.
• Texas faces a measles outbreak with 124 cases, mostly among unvaccinated children.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine critic, is the new US Health Secretary amid the outbreak.

A child in West Texas has died from measles, marking the first reported fatality from the disease in the US in nearly a decade, state health officials announced on Wednesday.

The "school-aged child" who was unvaccinated died at a children's hospital in Lubbock after being hospitalized last week and testing positive for measles, according to a press release from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The death comes as Texas battles a growing measles outbreak that has surged from a handful of cases to at least 124 infections since early February, mostly among children, state health officials said. At least 18 people have been hospitalized so far, most of whom are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Another nine cases have been confirmed in eastern New Mexico close to its border with Texas, bringing the total to more than 130 across the two states, per Texas DSHS.

Measles, a highly contagious airborne virus, has a fatality rate of one to three deaths per 1,000 reported cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lara Anton, senior press officer of the Texas Department of State Health Services, told Business Insider that it is very difficult to stop the spread of measles. Not only does an unvaccinated person have a 90 percent chance of being infected if exposed, an infected person can be contagious without knowing it for up to four days, Anton said.

"When people register their children for school in kindergarten through seventh grade, they provide updates to us and the school districts on the vaccination coverage in their district," Anton said. "Generally the coverage level statewide has dipped down in recent years."

Measles death is uncommon. The last reported measles death of an adult in the US occurred in 2015 when a Washington woman contracted it at a health clinic, CDC data shows. Anton said a child also died of measles in Texas in 2018.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine critic, was confirmed as US Health Secretary this month despite opposition from medical professionals and some members of Congress. He has, however, pledged to maintain existing vaccination programs.

"We are following the measles epidemic every day," Kennedy said during a meeting with President Donald Trump's cabinet at the White House. "Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year. In this country last year there were 16. So, it's not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year."

He also mentioned that two people had died in the outbreak, but the Texas DSHS was only able to confirm one death so far.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

• Trump fired General Charles Q. Brown Jr. and nominated Lt. Gen. Dan Caine as Joint Chiefs chairman.
• Caine's background includes combat experience, entrepreneurship, and roles in national security.
• Experts say Caine may be missing important qualifications compared to past picks for chairman.

President Donald Trump has announced his intention to nominate venture capitalist and retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dan "Razin" Caine as the new Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, after firing General Charles Q. Brown Jr. from the job Friday night.

While Trump praised Caine as a "national security expert" and "warfighter," he would be an unusual choice for the country's highest-ranking military leader.

The former fighter pilot is "a serial entrepreneur and investor," according to his military biography. He is now listed as a partner at Shield Capital, a venture capital firm.

Dan Caine and Shield Capital did not respond to requests for comment.

Donald F. Kettl, an emeritus professor and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, told Business Insider that it was unusual for a president to appoint a retired general to head the joint chiefs, especially one with less experience.

"Experience plus trust are the keys," Kettl said. "A gap in either can create problems in shaping policy and in leading the armed services."

General Brown had previously served as Commander of Pacific Air Forces, US Air Forces Central Command, and as Chief of Staff of the Air Force, with more than 3,100 flight hours as a command pilot. The four-star general and former fighter pilot was also the first African American to lead a branch of the US Armed Forces.

Mark Cancian, a retired colonel and senior adviser with the CSIS Defense and Security Department, said Caine may be missing important qualifications: he was a three star general and did not serve at the highest levels before retiring, unlike Brown who was Chief of Staff of the Air Force before being promoted to Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. However, based on regulations, Caine could still hold this position legally if the president signs a waiver.

"It's not like Caine is a junior person, but that step to four star is a big one," said Cancian, "He will need to get up to speed and change his perspective from what it had been before, which was more Air Force focused, and that will be an extra challenge though not impossible."

Cancian said the only time he could think someone coming out of retirement to be appointed chairman of Joint Chiefs would be when John F. Kennedy appointed General Maxwell Taylor to the position in 1962. Maxwell, however, was already a four-star general, and his predecessor was not fired.

"The US military is ultimately under civilian control and the President is commander in chief of the military," said Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, "So while it is not common to fire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the president has that authority."

Who is Dan Caine?

Caine graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1990 with a degree in economics and later earned a master’s in air warfare from the American Military University.

He would go on to log over 2,800 hours flying the F-16 fighter jet, including over 150 combat hours, and later served as an associate director for military affairs at the CIA.

Trump has long expressed admiration for Caine. In a 2019 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, he recalled meeting Caine in Iraq, when Caine told him that the Islamic State group could be destroyed in as little as a week instead of years.

"'We're only hitting them from a temporary base in Syria,'" Trump said Caine told him. '"But if you gave us permission, we could hit them from the back, from the side, from all over — from the base that you're right on, right now, sir. They won't know what the hell hit them.'"

"General 'Razin' Caine was — he's some general. He's a real general, not a television general," Trump added at an appearance in Miami last Wednesday, where he criticized the current military leadership.

Announcing his nomination on Truth Social, Trump described Caine as "an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a 'warfighter' with significant interagency and special operations experience." Trump also credited Caine for the "complete annihilation" of ISIS during his first term.

Shield Capital announced in January that Caine had joined its team as a "venture partner."

In a press release at the time, the tech-focused firm described Caine as a "distinguished leader" who would bring both military and entrepreneurial experience to the position.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Caine has held a number of private sector roles, including cofounding Texas-based private airline RISE Air.