CMS Slack Workspace With 1,700 Members Is Where Tech Meets Trump Health Officials

The most exclusive room in Washington has no door, no velvet rope and a Code of Conduct. According to a KFF Health News investigation published Oct. 9, a Slack workspace run by CMS has grown to roughly 1,700 members over the past year, mostly tech leaders, financiers and Trump administration officials. Only a handful of patient advocates, doctors and hospital representatives are in it.

Amy Gleason, a former acting administrator of DOGE and now chief product officer for CMS' Office of Health Technology and Products, set the workspace up in August 2025. In February, CBS News reported, officials used it to invite companies to a non-public FDA listening session on conversational AI for patients. At least 35 industry organizations attended. The session was not on the FDA's public calendar. Members include Oura Health, Palantir and 8VC.

Gleason calls the effort "an open, voluntary technical collaboration." Former FDA lawyer Joseph Daval says the chat room resembles a federal advisory committee, a law passed in part out of concern about "interest group capture." The workspace's own rules say it is not an advisory committee. Medical Daily notes that no agency or court has found the group violates any rule.

My take: 1,700 seats, a sandbox built by the government, and an invitation list that reads like the best table at the gala. Call it collaboration or call it a lobbying lounge, but nobody can say the access is not spectacular.