The Pentagon confirmed the departure on Wednesday, with spokesman Sean Parnell stating that Phelan was leaving “effective immediately” and that Undersecretary Hung Cao would become Acting Secretary of the Navy. No reason was given for the abrupt exit.
Phelan’s departure comes as the Navy is helping oversee a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, one of its biggest operations in decades.
Phelan, born in 1964, was confirmed as the 79th Secretary of the Navy in March 2025 after a bipartisan Senate vote of 62 to 30. A Wall Street businessman and campaign donor, he was co-founding partner of MSD Capital, a private investment firm established to manage the capital of tech billionaire Michael Dell.
His resignation lands at an extraordinarily tense moment in US-Iran relations. The US Navy began a military campaign to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in March, and from April 13, Trump announced that the Navy itself would blockade the strait, preventing ships from entering or leaving Iranian ports.
The strait carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s seaborne oil. On April 18, Iran announced it was closing the strait again in response to the US refusing to lift the naval blockade.
The situation deteriorated further on Wednesday. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized two ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and a container ship was fired on by an IRGC gunboat northeast of Oman, causing heavy damage to the vessel’s bridge.
Despite the escalation, Trump extended the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely to allow its leaders to come up with a unified proposal, but insisted the naval blockade would remain in place.
A planned second round of peace talks in Islamabad collapsed after Iran said it would not attend while the blockade continued.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted the blockade has been “massively effective” and was “inflicting maximum leverage and economic pressure” on Iran. Meanwhile, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres cautiously welcomed the ceasefire extension, calling it “an important step toward de-escalation and creating critical space for diplomacy.”
The reason behind Phelan’s sudden departure has not been disclosed by the Pentagon or the White House.
