--- description: Find out why Russell Vought is one of the 100 most influential people of 2025. title: Russell Vought: The 100 Most Influential People of 2025 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1991db5f35b04945/6998c5c807a30d521077ceaa/time100-2025-russell-vought.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 16, 2025 # Russell Vought ## Video: TIME100 2025 | See Every Honoree [Watch (HLS stream): TIME100 2025 | See Every Honoree](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6HpL33vZ.m3u8) (3:55)  _Published 2025-04-16. See every 2025 TIME100 honoree._ by [Eric Cortellessa](/author/eric-cortellessa/) ## Eric Cortellessa Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent  Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee for US President-elect Donald Trump, during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025\. Trump's cabinet nominees have started testifying before the US Senate as Republicans rush to install the new cabinet soon after the Jan. 20 inauguration. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee for US President-elect Donald Trump, during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025\. Trump's cabinet nominees have started testifying before the US Senate as Republicans rush to install the new cabinet soon after the Jan. 20 inauguration. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesAl Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images When Donald Trump took office in January, he was armed with a weapon none of his predecessors had enjoyed: a shadow government in waiting, ready to turn his ideas into policy. The man who built much of that infrastructure is Russell Vought, an architect of Trump’s shock-and-awe second-term agenda. During the Biden years, Vought led the Center for Renewing America, a think tank dedicated to disempowering the administrative state and laying the groundwork for Trump 2.0\. Now, many of the Administration’s most aggressive moves can be traced to Vought’s recommendations: from dramatically down­sizing the federal bureaucracy and demoralizing career civil servants to ending [diversity hiring practices](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/us/politics/trump-budget-cuts-russell-vought.html "undefined") and withholding congressionally appropriated funds. As director of the Office of Management and Budget, Vought is one of Trump’s closest advisers helping consolidate power within the Executive Branch. Vought may keep a low profile, but he’s the intellectual lodestar of the revolution upending Washington. _Cortellessa is a TIME senior correspondent_ Russell Vought Is on the 2025 TIME100 List ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2025/7273795/russell-vought/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2025/7273795/russell-vought/"},"headline":"Russell Vought","datePublished":"2025-04-16T10:30:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:46:40.992Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2025/7273795/russell-vought/","keywords":["TIME100","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","T100Leaders2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1991db5f35b04945/6998c5c807a30d521077ceaa/time100-2025-russell-vought.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eric Cortellessa","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eric-cortellessa/"}],"creator":"Eric Cortellessa","articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1991db5f35b04945/6998c5c807a30d521077ceaa/time100-2025-russell-vought.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2025/7273795/russell-vought/","name":"Russell Vought"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME100 2025 | See Every Honoree","description":"See every 2025 TIME100 honoree.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6HpL33vZ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2025-04-16T10:30:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6HpL33vZ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2025/7273795/russell-vought/","duration":"PT3M55S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2025/7273795/russell-vought/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```