Ricky Buria
Colonel Ricky Buria is an American public official. Since 2025 he has served as chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Military service and political career
After enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps, Buria deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.[1] As of 2022, Buria was the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 362 Commanding Officer in Mirimar, California.[2]
From 2023 to 2024, Buria served as a Fellow in the Secretary of Defense Strategic Thinkers Program at Johns Hopkins University.[3]
Buria joined the Department of Defense staff as a junior military aide to Secretary Lloyd Austin in April 2024.[4] Buria remained at the Department of Defense after the Biden administration ended in January 2025 and continued to serve in a military aide role under Secretary Pete Hegseth. Buria assumed the duties of acting senior military assistant in February 2025, a role usually reserved for high-ranking military officials.[5] In addition to fulfilling the traditional "body man" duties that the military aide assumes, Buria began advising Hegseth on policy and administrative matters; Buria reportedly helped Hegseth gain access to freer means of communication on his personal devices, including Signal, the messaging app on which Hegseth shared classified information in a group text.[6][1]
In April 2025, Buria resigned from his post in the U.S. Marine Corps to assume a role as a political appointee at the Department of Defense, receiving a waiver from the White House to begin work in a political role more quickly than would generally be allowable under federal law.[7][4] Public reporting indicated that the White House did not approve of Buria taking the chief of staff role at the Pentagon, namely because of his ties to the Biden administration.[8][9][10] Buria is also linked to the pattern of Hegseth denying promotions to female officers and people of color at the department.[11][12] Buria was ultimately named chief of staff in December 2025.[13][14]
References
- 1 2 Lowell, Hugo (2025-07-23). "Trump advisers abandon effort to find new chief of staff to serve Pete Hegseth". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ "Maj. Gen. Gering visits Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 362". DVIDS. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ "Marine Corps University Factbook 2024" (PDF).
- 1 2 Robertson, Noah (2025-04-22). "How a Lloyd Austin aide became Pete Hegseth's 'only guy standing'". Defense News. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ "Hegseth's Yes-Man Signal Guru Is His New Favorite Aide". Yahoo News. 2025-04-25. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ Natasha Bertrand, Haley Britzky, Jake Tapper (2025-04-24). "'He gets him what he needs': Hegseth's new favorite adviser helped set up Signal on one of secretary's computers at Pentagon | CNN Politics". CNN. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ "DOD Senior Advisor Announcements". U.S. Department of War. Archived from the original on 2026-05-13. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ "POLITICO Pro: White House renews search for new chief of staff for Hegseth". subscriber.politicopro.com. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ Lamothe, Dan (2025-07-22). "Trump intervenes to boost Hegseth aide who left military for politics". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ Reporter, William Vaillancourt (2025-05-10). "White House Blocking Hegseth's 'Rasputin' From Chief Role". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ Migdon, Brooke (March 27, 2026). "Hegseth's Chief of Staff Claimed Trump Wouldn't Want to Be Seen with a Black Female Army Officer, Report Alleges".
- ↑ Jaffe, Greg; Schmitt, Eric; Cooper, Helene; Entous, Adam (2026-03-27). "Hegseth Strikes Two Black and Two Female Officers From Promotion List". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ "Embattled top Hegseth aide wins promotion". POLITICO. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- ↑ "Exclusive | Pete Hegseth's top aide is spreading rumors for 1 reason". 2026-04-03. Retrieved 2026-08-23.