Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, who has appeared on multiple editions of ARTnews’s Top 200 Collectors list, is stepping down from his position. Undersecretary Hung Cao will become acting secretary, according to a short post on X by Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson.
While Parnell’s statement contained little information about Phelan’s departure, the New York Times characterized it as a “firing,” saying that it followed months of disagreements with senior members of the Department of Defense over how to revamp the Navy’s shipbuilding program. Phelan is the latest cabinet secretary to leave during President Donald Trump’s second term. Earlier this week, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid allegations of abuse of power, per the Associated Press.
Per the Times, Phelan got caught between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, the latter of whom progressively took over Phelan’s responsibilities in the shipbuilding effort. Phelan had repeatedly pushed for an initiative called—not kidding—“Golden Fleet” with an aim to build—again, not a joke—a “Trump-class” of battleships.
The timing of Phelan’s departure would seem to back up the idea that this was not planned. On Tuesday, Phelan met with media to discuss the shipbuilding effort, according to the Military Times, which noted that he also delivered a keynote address at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium.
Phelan, founder of Palm Beach–based private investment firm Rugger Management, brought no military experience to the role but had significant ties to the art world. (For more than two decades, he also ran Michael Dell’s private office.) His contemporary art collection, housed between properties in Aspen, Colorado, and Palm Beach, Florida, includes works by Andreas Gursky, Lisa Yuskavage, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Jenny Holzer, and Marilyn Minter.
Phelan’s path into the Trump White House was paved with major donations, both to Trump’s 2024 campaign and to Republican candidates. As previously reported by ARTnews, Phelan donated over $1.8 million in 2024 to Republican candidates, parties, and political action committees. He and his wife Amy, with whom he collects art, held a fundraising dinner at their Aspen home that year, raising $12 million for the Trump campaign. Attendees were required to give donations of $25,000 to $500,000 per couple for attendance; guests included casino mogul and major art collector Steve Wynn and Texas governor Greg Abbott, among others.
Phelan has served as a board member of the Aspen Art Museum, where Amy serves on the national council, and the couple held membership on the North American acquisitions council of the Tate museums and the contemporary art council of the Museum of Modern Art. Their Aspen property was once a requisite gathering place for the art world in Aspen, hosting WineCrush until 2019. More recently, it hosted a 2022 amfAR gala that raised $5.3 million for AIDS research.
Phelan was confirmed as Navy Secretary in March 2025, by a 62–30 vote. His tenure, in the end, lased just 13 months.
Phelan previously faced scrutiny in February when flight logs in the so-called Epstein files showed that he flew on the private jet of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2006, just four months before Epstein was indicated in Florida on felony solicitation of prostitution. A friend of Phelan’s told CNN, which broke that story, that the flight was the only time Phelan interacted with Epstein, and had been invited on the flight by then-CEO of Bear Stearns Jimmy Cayne.
