A top adviser to RFK Jr. has strong Arizona ties

Calley Means, a wellness influencer and entrepreneur, is a senior adviser at the U.S. Health and Human Services Department who has been detailed to the White House. He has played a key role in actions led by Kennedy, including the department's revamped U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

Means, who moved with his family to the Phoenix area from San Francisco in 2021, is also the brother of Dr. Casey Means, who is President Donald Trump's nominee to be the nation's next surgeon general, though her nomination as of April 24 remained in limbo.

Means told The Arizona Republic that while he is currently living in the Washington, D.C., area, he loves Arizona and would like to return one day with his family. His wife still has an Arizona business interest — a smoothie company called ShakeUp Superfoods.

At a health summit hosted by Politico in D.C. on April 21, Means said he has been working "very closely" with Kennedy, whose vaccine skepticism, cuts to the federal health workforce, slashing of mRNA vaccine research funding and other moves have attracted considerable scrutiny. Means has publicly supported Kennedy's cuts to jobs in Health and Human Services.

Means has previously said that Kennedy's Aug. 22, 2024, announcement in Phoenix that he was suspending his independent presidential campaign to support Trump was "one of the most exciting days of my life."

During the Politico summit, Means said MAHA has meshed "so much better into MAGA (President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again base) than most pundits could have possibly expected," though some MAHA supporters have criticized Trump's executive order to boost production of glyphosate, a chemical compound found in herbicides.

On April 22, Kennedy wrapped up a week of testifying in tense congressional hearings about his agency, including actions to change the childhood vaccine schedule, and for using government resources for HHS promotional videos that, among other things, feature Kennedy drinking whole milk in a hot tub with Kid Rock. Kennedy testified that his staff told him the government cost of those videos was "zero."

Means has been called out by critics in the science world, including biomedical scientist Andrea Love, who is executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation. In October, Love posted on X that Means is a "wellness grifter who doesn't know science."

Other than expressing his love for Arizona, Means declined The Republic's request for an interview, although on April 25 he provided a comment about an April 24 New York Times story about him. The Times' story said Means was advising the Trump administration on the American health system at the same time as he was running a wellness company in a position to benefit from Trump health policies.

Means told The Republic that the Times' report was "not a story."

While he was living in Arizona, Means co-founded an online health care payments platform called Truemed that allows consumers to use tax-free medical savings accounts to purchase wellness products such as supplements, fitness equipment and red-light therapy products. Trump in August 2025 broadened the range of people who could open such health savings accounts, the Times reported.

Means told The Republic on April 25 that he divested his holdings and resigned from Truemed as soon as he became a permanent, full-time government employee in November 2025, which complied with all government rules and regulations.

Before November, he had been what's known as an "SGE" − a special government employee — and said he never worked on anything related to health savings accounts in that role.

Here are nine things to know about Calley Means.

TIME Magazine named him as a top 100 health figure for 2026

TIME Magazine on Feb. 11 named Means one of the Time100 Health as one of 100 people "advancing care, shaping policy, and driving innovations that transform lives." The magazine called Means a "diet ideator" and says he "rose from relative obscurity" to a key role in the Trump administration helping Kennedy to "craft and coordinate an overhaul of the American diet and food system." 

The magazine categorized Means as a health "catalyst" along with, among others, U.S. Food and Drug Administration administrator Dr. Marty Makary, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, emergency physician Dr. Joe Sachs, who is executive producer and writer of the HBO Max series "The Pitt", and Susan Monarez, who was fired in August 2025 as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He moved to Arizona from San Francisco during COVID-19

Calley Means and his wife, Leslie Voorhees Means, moved to Arizona during the COVID-19 pandemic. They were at the time operating a custom wedding dress company called Anomalie. They started the company in San Francisco, opened an office in Scottsdale and then made the move to Arizona, according to media reports. Anomalie was acquired by David's Bridal in 2022.

“San Francisco just left us feeling really disappointed. It made sense for us to relocate and go here. Things are easier, and also happier," Voorhees Means told the Phoenix Business Journal in March 2021.

He was active at the Arizona Capitol during the 2025 legislative session

Means in the 2025 legislative session publicly supported two MAHA-backed Arizona bills sponsored by state Rep. Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu City. One was to remove certain chemical food dyes from food served in Arizona public schools that Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, later signed into law. The second Biasiucci bill aimed to prohibit people from using their federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) benefits to purchase soda. Hobbs vetoed the second bill.

Means, during the March 19, 2025, "Make Arizona Healthy Again" roundtable discussion promoting the Biasiucci bills, described himself as coming from a libertarian/Republican background and that as a lobbyist for the soda industry he once argued it was government overreach to restrict SNAP.

But, he said, he has since realized the government overreach is actually that food and soda companies have lobbied to get billions of dollars from the federal SNAP program, and "that doesn't make sense," he said.

Others on the panel included Andrew Gruel, a chef and founder of the American Gravy Restaurant Group; Gilbert naturopathic doctor Dr. Jarom Ipson; conservative podcaster and Scottsdale resident Alex Clark; and activist and filmmaker Grace Price. At the end of the discussion, the panelists, including Means, said "MAHA" instead of "cheese" as they posed for a group photo.

The national End Chronic Disease Coalition, which is in line with RFK Jr.'s MAHA tenets, supported bills in more than 20 states, including Arizona, in 2025. The bills addressed SNAP reform and eliminating processed foods, additives and dyes from schools. The coalition in 2025 said Calley Means was its founder, although he no longer has a presence on the current coalition's website.

He wrote a 2024 bestselling book with his sister

Means is named as a co-author on his younger sister's 2024 book titled "Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health," which is about Casey Means' decision to leave her medical residency and pursue what she described as a less traditional medical path focused on preventing chronic disease. The book was a New York Times bestseller.

After leaving her medical residency, Casey Means founded Levels, a glucose-monitoring tech company that aims to help people see how food impacts their health through "AI-powered food logging" and "habit tracking."

Two former U.S. surgeons general have spoken out against Casey's nomination — Dr. Richard Carmona, who lives in Arizona and was appointed surgeon general by President George W. Bush; and former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, who served during Trump's first term. Carmona and Adams both said, among other points, that Casey Means lacks the experience for the job.

His mother's death was a pivotal moment in his life

The book "Good Energy" is dedicated to the Meanses' mother, Gayle Means, who died in 2021 of pancreatic cancer at age 71, which was an event that the siblings have described as pivotal in their lives. The book's dedication calls pancreatic cancer "a preventable metabolic condition" and in the acknowledgements, the siblings say they decided to write the book the day after she died.

The Means siblings grew up in Washington, D.C., with Casey Means going on to study science and graduate medical school from Stanford University, while Calley Means studied political science and business. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, which is where he met his wife.

Isabella Cueto of STAT News pinpointed the ascent of the Means siblings to a two-hour interview with conservative media personality Tucker Carlson that has had nearly 4 million views since it was first posted in August 2024.

He's in a documentary featuring Arizonans called 'Breaking Big Food'

The 2025 documentary "Breaking Big Food" features Calley Means and Voorhees Means, along with Arizona entrepreneurs Patrick Sullivan Jr., Ashley Leroux Sullivan and Alex Clark. Clark is an Arizona podcaster whose Culture Apothecary show is produced by the Arizona-based conservative organization Turning Point USA.

Other Arizonans in the movie, which is available for streaming on Amazon Prime, are Jill Keefe, the founder of Good Living Greens, an independent grocery store in Fountain Hills; Arizona cattle rancher Tim Petersen; Mesa chicken farmer and feed store operator Tiffiny Lilley; the Scottsdale restaurant Amelia's by EAT; and Ethel Lane Bakery in Fountain Hills.

The film documents how Sullivan and Leroux Sullivan, who run the health and nutrition products company Jigsaw Health, opened an organic coffee shop and market called Firefly in Scottsdale. Sullivan and Leroux Sullivan are listed as executive producers of the film, and Sullivan's cousin Cory Malkin is the producer, according to IMDB.

His wife founded an Arizona smoothie business

Voorhees Means is named as the statutory agent for a Tempe-based company called Superfoods LLC, according to Arizona Corporation Commission records, which list the business as active. Voorhees Means' Instagram account promotes a food truck called ShakeUp Superfoods, which markets itself as offering healthy smoothies made with protein, raw milk and "superfood powders instead of dyes."

The ShakeUp Superfoods smoothie truck typically announces where it's going to be on Instagram. The company's website says the food truck may be booked for events like weddings and block parties.

The "about" section on the ShakeUp Superfoods website includes a photo of Voorhees Means and says the company was founded by a busy working mom, who discovered that "blending shakes became my go-to solution for healthy fats, fiber, protein, and vitamins/nutrients. My family loves them, and I know yours will too!"

He has fiery exchanges with critics on social media

Calley Means and far-right activist and Arizona native Laura Loomer sparred over Casey Means' nomination. Loomer called Casey Means a "total joke" and accused Calley Means of being a "PR spin master" who was not loyal enough to Trump.

“It was a mission for Casey and I to drive MAHA voters to Trump, and I think that happened,” Calley wrote on X on May 9, 2025, "And we don't have a PR firm."

After Adams, the former U.S. surgeon general, spoke out against Casey Means' nomination for surgeon general, writing in STAT News that "confirming a nominee who doesn't practice medicine would diminish the surgeon general’s office," Calley Means fired back on X.

"You’re not a Republican, you’re a democratic activist," Calley wrote on Feb. 26. "You were a lightweight as surgeon general and aren’t in the same stratosphere as Casey in terms of intelligence, which is obvious to literally everyone who knows both of you."

He once called COVID-19 vaccine mandates a 'war crime'

In October 2024 Calley Means posted on X that COVID-19 vaccine mandates are a "war crime," particularly for kids, and that U.S. policies around COVID-19 "were the biggest public policy mistake of our lifetime and should be used as a roadmap of how we need to get corruption out of our institutions."

When he was on Joe Rogan's podcast in October 2024, he attracted criticism for saying that "if you were metabolically healthy, you did not die of COVID."