Trump Appoints Airbnb Co-Founder as Chief Design Officer

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order creating a new post of Chief Government Design Officer and tapped Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia to fill the role, according to people familiar with the decision.

The appointment gives Gebbia a leadership mandate to overhaul federal forms and services through a newly established “National Design Studio,” which will be housed in the White House. The unit is tasked with redesigning some of the government’s most widely used services, including tax filings, Social Security applications, Medicare enrollment, and immigration processes.

Gebbia, 44, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. His mission, outlined in the executive order, is to “prioritize improvements to both digital and physical platforms that have a major impact on Americans’ daily lives.”

A veteran of Elon Musk’s now-dismantled “Government Efficiency Task Force,” Gebbia previously helped streamline the federal retirement system. In a June interview with Bloomberg, he described much of the U.S. bureaucracy as a “design desert,” underscoring his belief in the need for structural reform.

Until recently, the Office of Personnel Management relied heavily on paper records stored in an abandoned Pennsylvania mine to process federal pension benefits. Trump earlier this year also eliminated “18F,” a digital design office created under former President Barack Obama, which had worked on modernizing government websites and systems.

The new design unit will report directly to the White House Chief of Staff, with a July 4, 2026 deadline set for delivering initial results.