Washington DC - Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing skepticism from his own Make America Healthy Again movement over his recent embrace of artificial intelligence.

Last week, Kennedy did an interview with Vice President JD Vance during their annual MAHA summit, where he vowed the technology would one day free Americans from "medical tyranny" by allowing them to "fact check their own medical advice."

"We're never ever again going to be able to be dominated by public officials who tell us: 'Trust the experts,'" he said.

While his remarks sound typical of the secretary, several notable figures in and supporters of Kennedy's MAHA movement recently told AP News that they feel their leader is cozying up to large corporations the movement set out to fight.

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Dr. Robert Malone, a MAHA doctor who recently served on a federal vaccine panel under Kennedy, described the event as a "classic pay-to-play," as a number of AI and Silicon Valley executives were in attendance, and the event – for the first time – was sponsored by mega companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

"There was no representation of people that have been at the core of MAHA and its creation, whether it be physicians or patients or patient advocates," Dr. Malone said, adding Kennedy replaced "MAHA moms" with corporations.

Some have also argued his current views on how AI is used in medicine are flawed, including Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a cancer specialist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, who said Kennedy "obviously doesn't understand how AI works."

"He wants AI to mimic what he says, but that's not what good AI is going to do."

Prior to President Donald Trump tapping him for his role as health secretary, Kennedy built a reputation as a prominent anti-vaccine and alternative medicine advocate.

His embrace of AI comes as Trump has been doing the same, and has urged the party to get on board. In spite of growing fears among Americans around AI, Trump recently signed an executive order that would allow tech leaders to "police themselves" so they won't have to face any government oversight.

In a speech at the beginning of the summit, Tony Lyons – who runs the MAHA Center, MAHA PAC, and several related groups – argued the movement's core mission was always to "build the biggest movement we can possibly build to actually get things done."