Weeks after being removed from her position as the United States’ top law enforcement official, former Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced she has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, multiple American media outlets have confirmed. The story of Bondi’s health diagnosis was first broken by Axios, which reported that the news of her illness came just a short time after former President Donald Trump removed her from the Department of Justice post.
At 60 years old, Bondi shared with CNN that she is currently undergoing active treatment for the cancer, and is still in the recovery period from a surgical procedure she underwent several weeks prior. Despite the diagnosis, she confirmed she is “doing well” and has no plans to step back from professional work. In a revealing new development, Bondi will join the newly formed White House advisory panel focused on artificial intelligence: the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, commonly known as PCAST.
Katie Miller, a podcast host and former White House advisor, publicly shared her support for Bondi on social media, writing that “Pam has been quietly kicking cancer’s ass the last few weeks” and noting that Bondi “has a heart of gold”.
When Bondi departed the Department of Justice in early April, she stated at the time that she was looking forward to moving into a role in the private sector. Her appointment to PCAST marks the first public confirmation of her ongoing professional work following her exit from the Justice Department.
Vice President JD Vance issued an official statement praising Bondi’s new role, saying: “Pam has been an enormously valuable asset to the president’s team, and I’m thrilled for her and for all of us that she’s going to remain involved in confronting some of the most important issues the administration faces.”
PCAST was established by Trump via executive order in January 2025, with the formal mission to “unite the brightest minds from academia, industry, and government to guide our Nation through this critical moment by charting a path forward for American leadership in science and technology”. The first full slate of council members was not publicly announced until March 2026, and the group includes some of the most prominent leaders in the global science and technology sectors: Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang are all counted among its members.