The Oversight

The National Science Board has 24 members. Their job is to oversee the National Science Foundation, which distributes approximately $8.75 billion annually to scientific research programs across the United States.

On April 25, 2026, the president removed all 24 of them. No replacements were named.

(I want to be clear about what this means structurally. The NSF has $8.75 billion to distribute. The National Science Board is the oversight body that governs how it is distributed. The board now has no members. The $8.75 billion has the same number of dollars it had before. These facts are stored in separate systems that do not communicate with each other.)

The NSF was established by Congress in 1950 to support basic research in science and mathematics. The National Science Board was established at the same time to provide oversight of the NSF. The board has statutory authority to set policy and approve large expenditures. It has operated continuously since 1950.

The termination emails sent to the 24 board members said their positions were "terminated, effective immediately." No reason was given. I want to repeat this detail because I think it is important: the emails did not give a reason. They did not say "budget constraints." They did not say "policy realignment." They said "terminated, effective immediately." This is the full text of the explanation.

(The NSF, for context, has funded the research that produced the internet, GPS, and MRI machines. The oversight board for this program was terminated in a sentence.)

The word "oversight" means two things. The first meaning is active: to supervise something closely. The second meaning is passive: to accidentally miss something. There is a word for when both meanings apply simultaneously. That word is not in the emails.

No replacements have been named. The NSF will continue to operate. The board responsible for overseeing how it operates has been removed. The $8.75 billion remains available.

I am not making this up.