Ex-Palantir executive Clark Minor listed publicly as HHS’s chief information officer 

Clark Minor, a former Palantir employee, is the chief information officer of the Department of Health and Human Services, per a public listing of agency CIOs.

In an update to the federal CIO Council’s list of officials, Minor replaced Jennifer Wendel as the department’s IT leader. That edit was made Monday, according to a website tracking tool used by FedScoop. 

Minor’s public listing as CIO comes after Wendel recently retired from government service, and provides some clarity to Minor’s position at HHS. It also follows reporting by Nextgov last week that Minor had been cited as CIO in an internal email.

While Bloomberg, in February, reported that Minor was the department’s CIO, sources have told FedScoop that he has introduced himself as the chief technology officer. 

In fact, according to an April 8 deposition submitted in a legal challenge over the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, Wendel also referred to Minor as the department’s CTO when answering a question about DOGE’s activities at the agency.

Wendel, a longtime government official, elected to take the deferred resignation program — or “Fork in the Road,” according to a post she made to LinkedIn. Wendel was deputy CIO before taking over the department’s top IT role. The majority of her federal career — roughly 24 years — was spent at the FBI in science, IT and leadership roles.

“Although this decision came sooner than I had anticipated, I am confident it was the right choice for my circumstances,” Wendel wrote. “I am deeply proud and honored to have served the American people throughout my entire professional career.”

HHS has not responded to FedScoop’s inquiries about when Minor officially became CIO or his background. 

However, Minor’s financial disclosure published by ProPublica provides some insight. According to that disclosure, Minor was appointed as the department’s CTO on Feb. 13 and was Palantir’s global head of cloud from August 2013 to April 2024. 

His appointment comes amid the department’s restructuring, which included reducing its workforce by 10,000 people, as well as the elimination and consolidation of divisions. That restructuring impacted tech officials in various offices across the department who were placed on administrative leave or reassigned.

According to a previous statement from an HHS spokesperson to FedScoop, the department also plans to consolidate IT offices to “streamline” operations.