Phelan tasked Cao<\/a> as chief management officer with leading and synchronizing the modernization of the Navy\u2019s unclassified IT systems and critical defense business systems.<\/p>\nCao, who was nominated for the Navy undersecretary position last year by Trump, is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and was commissioned as a special operations officer, serving as a diver and explosive ordnance technician. During his long career in uniform, he deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan during the post-9\/11 wars. He also worked at the Pentagon, including as the section head for the budget programming division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, according to his LinkedIn profile. After leaving the Navy, he ran unsuccessfully for U.S. House and Senate seats as a Republican candidate in Virginia during the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, respectively.<\/p>\n
In his written statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee before his confirmation hearing last year, Cao told lawmakers that there\u2019s a generation of young people that are eager to serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey grew up in the digital age where technology evolved at quantum speed. They deserve the best training and weapons available. Their intrinsic desire to solve problems using technology should not be stifled by red tape,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t![\"Jon](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776907818_250_Profile-pic.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\tWritten by Jon Harper
\n\t\t\tJon Harper is Editor-in-Chief of DefenseScoop. He leads an award-winning team of journalists in providing breaking news and in-depth analysis on military technology and the ways in which it is shaping how the Defense Department operates and modernizes. You can also follow him on X: @Jon_Harper_\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Phelan is departing his role as secretary of the Navy, effective immediately, and Hung Cao will step…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7054,5687,12,25290,835,25291,4968,18,74,520],"class_list":{"0":"post-38865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-donald-trump","8":"tag-battleship","9":"tag-defense-secretary-pete-hegseth","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-hung-cao","12":"tag-information-technology","13":"tag-john-phelan","14":"tag-navy","15":"tag-pete-hegseth","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-trump-administration"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116451437699641112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Hung-Cao.jpg\")
NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO (Apr. 14, 2026) \u2013 The Honorable Hung Cao, Under Secretary of the Navy, front, speaks to the crew of the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Cincinnati (LCS 20) during a visit to the ship. While aboard the ship, Cao welcomed the crew home from a recent eight-month deployment to the U.S. 3rd and 7th Fleet areas of operations and answered questions about Sailor quality of life, readiness, and the future of the fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Claire M. Alfaro)<\/p>\n