Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is often referred to as RFK Jr., was sworn in as the 26th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in mid-February 2025.
As the U.S. health chief in President Trump’s administration, Kennedy oversees federal health programs and policies. He is in charge of key agencies that fight diseases, regulate medications, and conduct medical research, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health.
Prior to this appointment, Kennedy made a name for himself as an environmental lawyer and advocated for clean water. But in recent years, he’s garnered controversy for criticizing the use of vaccinations based on concern that they might adversely affect children’s health and for reversing an earlier stance on climate change. In 2016, he founded the Children’s Health Defense to advocate protecting children’s health.
Here’s how much Kennedy is worth now as Trump’s health secretary, and how he made his money.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was appointed the 26th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in February 2025, is a prominent member of the storied Kennedy family.
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What is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s net worth in 2025?
Kennedy has an estimated net worth of about $15 million, according to Forbes. That includes the assets of his third wife, actress Cheryl Hines.
Kennedy’s paternal grandfather, Joseph Kennedy Sr., helped build the family’s wealth, but that generational affluence has trickled down to RFK, among many other relatives. RFK Jr. holds at least $4 million of inherited assets, including a stake in a downtown Chicago development known as Wolf Point on land his grandfather acquired in the 1940s, according to Forbes.
Kennedy has millions of dollars in assets, based on a financial disclosure filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics prior to his appointment, in August 2024, and amended in February 2025 to reflect payments from his previous employment. At the time of the filing, he had a retirement plan worth as much as $500,000 with the National Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group in which he once served as an attorney. He also held as much as more than $500,000 in stock index funds, and had at least more than $2 million in advances for several books to be published.
Combined assets with his wife included at least a few hundred thousand dollars in exchange-traded funds and fixed-income funds, up to $500,000 in Bitcoin, some private equity investments, and cash holdings and market funds of more than $1 million. The parcels of commercial real estate in Chicago had a combined value of up to $1.5 million.
The couple also has liabilities, including at least more than $2 million in mortgages for three homes.
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How much does RFK Jr. make as U.S. Health Secretary?
Kennedy, as health secretary, makes an annual salary of $250,600, which is the rate of pay for all Level I positions in the executive schedule.
Who is RFK Jr?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was born in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 17, 1954. He is the third of 11 children born to Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, a brother of President John F. Kennedy and a U.S. Senator from New York who was assassinated during a presidential campaign run in 1968.
Like his father before him, RFK Jr. graduated from Harvard University and then went to the University of Virginia Law School for his Juris Doctor. Kennedy also studied at the London School of Economics and later at Pace University School of Law, where he received a master’s degree in environmental law.
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Kennedy was on the Pace Law School faculty from 1986 to 2018 and cofounded Pace’s Environmental Litigation Clinic. He is also the author of books on his life and family, the environment, and vaccinations.
In 1999, Kennedy founded Waterkeeper Alliance, a group of environmental organizations worldwide advocating clean water, and he served as chairman and attorney. In the past few years, his focus on criticizing vaccinations and backtracking on some environmental causes he previously championed has drawn rebuke from former supporters.
Kennedy, like many of his cousins in the Kennedy clan, was a lifelong Democrat, but he switched his political affiliation to independent when he made a run for the presidency in the 2024 presidential election.
How does RFK Jr. spend his money?
Kennedy isn’t known as an extravagant spender, but he has several homes. He and his actress wife have a house in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles that Realtor.com reported was purchased for $6.6 million in 2021.
His financial disclosure showed a 30-year mortgage worth as much as $5 million carrying a 2.375% rate for a personal residence, and another 30-year mortgage of up to $5 million with a 2.28% rate for an additional home. A third home carried a mortgage of as much as $500,000.
All of these mortgages were taken out between 2018 and 2022.
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