The Trump administration is putting Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia in charge of a newly created National Design Studio tasked with reimagining federal websites.
Gebbia, who will serve as the US Chief Design Officer, posted on X on Saturday that he’ll be working to update government services «to be as satisfying to use as the Apple Store: beautifully designed, great user experience, run on modern software.»
In the X post, Gebbia said that his work will support the new America by Design initiative, which was created by an executive order from President Donald Trump on Aug. 21. The initiative is intended «to improve experiences for Americans, starting by breathing new life into the design of sites where people interface with their Government. It is time to update the Government’s design language to be both usable and beautiful.»
Gebbia invited those interested in applying for roles at the National Design Studio to visit its new website. Currently, the website only has a prompt to sign up for an email list for updates.
In addition to his role in co-founding Airbnb, the vacation rental service, Gebbia has headed up an office furniture design business called Neighborhood, and Samara, a former Airbnb subsidiary that develops accessory dwelling units. Gebbia has also been on the board of directors at Tesla and was part of Elon Musk’s DOGE project, which led a tumultuous cost-cutting effort across federal agencies.
