Health for him and her has donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration fund, CNBC confirmed Tuesday.
The company, which offers a range of direct-to-consumer treatments for conditions such as weight loss, erectile dysfunction and hair loss, is the latest in a string of tech companies that have tried to curry favor with the new administration. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta both announced $1 million in donations to the inaugural fund late last year, and Amazon And Apple CEO Tim Cook also reportedly contributed.
“At Hims & Hers, we stand alongside leaders and advocates committed to improving America’s broken healthcare system,” the company said in a statement to CNBC.
Axios first reported Hims & Hers' donation.
Hims & Hers was a breakout star in the digital health sector last year, largely thanks to the success of its popular new weight loss offering.
The company began prescribing compounded semaglutide through its platform in May after launching a weight loss program in late 2023. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which can cost about $1,000 a month without insurance. Compounded semaglutide is a cheaper, tailored alternative to the brand-name drugs and can be manufactured when the brand-name drugs are in short supply.
The future of compound GLP-1 in the U.S. is not entirely clear, especially since members of Trump's circle have generally expressed conflicting opinions about the drugs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has criticized GLP-1. In an interview with CNBC, he said that “the first response” to obesity should be lifestyle changes, but added that “GLP drugs have their place.”
Dr. Marty Makary, Trump's nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, was an executive at the telehealth company Sesame, which connects consumers with doctors who can prescribe compounded GLP-1 drugs. However, Makary's role at Sesame in recent years has been largely ceremonial.
Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, who has been a close confidant of Trump since the election, has openly expressed his support for the drugs.
“Nothing would improve the health, longevity and quality of life of Americans more than making GLP inhibitors available to the public at extremely low cost,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media platform X in December.
At an event with reporters late last year in New York City, attended by CNBC, Hims & Hers said it would work with the new administration and share the company's position on the value of the drugs.
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