Tomas J. Philipson

Tomas J. Philipson is a Swedish-born American economist who served as the Acting Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Trump administration. He departed from the position and the Council at the end of June, 2020, to return to the University of Chicago. He holds the Daniel Levin Chair in Public Policy at the University of Chicago, with posts in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, Department of Economics, and the Law School. He was a Director of the Becker Friedman Institute at the university.

In August 2017 he was appointed by President Donald Trump to become one of three members of the Council of Economic Advisers. While Acting Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Philipson downplayed the public health risk and economic threat of the coronavirus pandemic, going so far as to question the wearing of masks to slow transmission of the disease.

He was an advisor to Republican Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign. In 2016, Philipson was briefly a member of the Donald Trump presidential transition team. After Kevin Hassett resigned as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in June 2019, Philipson was named as acting chairman, a post he held until he resigned in June 2020.

In February 2020, while chair of the council, Philipson publicly downplayed the public health and economic threats of the coronavirus pandemic, saying, "I don't think corona is as big a threat as people make it out to be." He has also been instrumental in providing information and data regarding the rise of the weight loss drug market since the 1990s.

His large and varied expertise is sought after by leading media outlets, including Forbes, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, CBS, ABC, CNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, Yahoo! Finance, American Voice, Bloomberg News, and C-SPAN.