Austin retired from the Army in 2016 only to be asked to return to the Pentagon by President Joe Biden in 2021, making history as the nation's first Black defense secretary.

The Pentagon Inspector General released a scathing report about Defense Secretary Austin’s failure to quickly disclose his hospitalization in early 2024.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will bid farewell in a speech Friday morning, just days before President-elect Trump is set to return to the White House. During his four years helming the Pentagon,

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized for two weeks at the start of 2024 for complications arising from surgery to treat prostate cancer.

The secrecy surrounding Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s hospitalizations in late 2023 and early 2024 “increased unnecessarily” the risks to US national security, the Pentagon’s inspector general concluded in a report released on Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized in 2024 and given medication that could affect his cognitive functions before he transferred his authority.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is responsible for the Pentagon neglecting to tell Congress and the White House that the former Army general was incapacitated last year due to treatment for prostate cancer as his office is required to do.

The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General found that Secretary Lloyd Austin's secret hospitalizations "unnecessarily" put America's national security at higher risk.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin bid farewell Friday to the forces and personnel he has led through a tumultuous term that had three major military crises, a global pandemic and a personal brush with cancer that became a flashpoint for the way it was mishandled.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin concludes a tumultuous tenure marked by military crises, a global pandemic, and a personal health battle. His leadership faced the controversial Afghanistan withdrawal,

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s failure to inform Congress or the White House as required when he was incapacitated due to treatment for prostate cancer and later complications potentially raised “unnecessary” security risks.

An investigation released on Wednesday into U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's secret 2024 hospitalization found his desire for privacy drove notification failures inside the government, and that he took medication that could have affected his cognitive functions while still in sole command.