Dr. Anthony Fauci will likely retire by the end of President Joe Biden’s term in January 2025.
Fauci has directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. He has also served as Biden’s chief medical adviser since January 2021.
“I have always said that sometime in the reasonable future, I would be stepping down,” Fauci told NBC News. “Thus sometime between now and then, I very likely will step down and move on to the next phase in my professional career, whatever that may be.”
At age 81, Fauci added, “I do not plan to be in this position forever.”
A NIAID spokesperson confirmed that Fauci does not plan to stay on past this term.
However, Fauci noted that “no decision has been made” about precisely when his retirement will begin — he simply views the end of Biden’s term as a marker for his retirement planning.
On Monday, he told CNN that “it is extremely unlikely — in fact, for sure — that I am not going to be here beyond January 2025.”
Fauci began his career at NIAID in 1968. In his tenure as the agency’s director, he helped lead the U.S. response to many public health crises, including HIV/AIDS, Ebola and Zika.
He has advised seven presidents on HIV/AIDS over the last four decades, starting with Ronald Reagan. In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role in creating the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a program that expanded access to HIV care and treatment. The Department of State estimates that the program has saved 20 million lives globally.
Fauci told Chatham House, a policy institute in the United Kingdom, in 2020 that whenever he retires, “I hope to be remembered as someone who stuck with the science and made contributions through multiple outbreaks, from HIV up to the most recent now with Covid.”
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