Westley Watende Omari Moore (born October 15, 1978) is an American politician, businessman, author, and formerU.S. Army officer, serving as the 63rdgovernor of Maryland since 2023.
Moore was born inTakoma Park, Maryland in 1978, to William Westley Moore Jr., a broadcast news journalist,[6] and Joy Thomas Moore,[7] a daughter of immigrants fromCuba andJamaica, and a news media professional.[8][9][10][11] His maternal grandfather, James Thomas, a Jamaican immigrant,[12] was the first black minister in the history of theDutch Reformed Church.[13] His grandmother, Winell Thomas, a Cuban who moved to Jamaica before immigrating to the U.S., was a retired schoolteacher.[12] His grandmother's stepfather was Chinese.[14]: 2:17
After graduating, he attendedWolfson College, Oxford as aRhodes Scholar, where he earned a master's degree in international relations in 2004[27] and submitted a thesis titledRise and Ramifications of Radical Islam in the Western Hemisphere.[28] He then served in the82nd Airborne Division and was deployed toAfghanistan from 2005 to 2006,[29] attaining the rank ofcaptain.[1][30] He left the Army in 2014.[28]
In 2010, Moore founded a television production company, Omari Productions, to create content for networks such as the Oprah Winfrey Network, PBS,HBO, andNBC.[36] In May 2014, he produced a three-part PBS series,Coming Back with Wes Moore, which followed the lives and experiences of returning veterans.[37][38][39]
In 2014, Moore founded BridgeEdU, a company that provided services to support students in their transition to college.[40] Students participating in BridgeEdU paid $500 into the program with varying fees.[41] BridgeEdU was not able to achieve financial stability and was acquired by student financial services company Edquity in 2019, mostly for its database of clients.[42][43] ABaltimore Banner interview with former BridgeEdU students found that the short-lived company had mixed results.[43] Moore was the commencement speaker atUtah Valley University's class of 2014 graduation ceremony.[44]
In September 2016, Moore producedAll the Difference, a PBS documentary that followed the lives of two young African-American men from theSouth Side of Chicago from high school through college and beyond.[45][46] Later that month, he launchedFuture City, an interview-based talk show with Baltimore'sWYPR station.[47][48][49]
From June 2017 until May 2021, Moore was CEO of theRobin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization that attempts to alleviate problems caused by poverty in New York City. It works mainly through funding schools,food pantries and shelters. It also administers a disaster relief fund.[50][51][1][52] During his tenure as CEO, the organization also raised more than $650 million, including $230 million in 2020 to provide increased need for assistance during theCOVID-19 pandemic.[53] Moore also sought to expand his advocacy to include America's poor and transform the organization into a national force in the poverty fight.[54]
Prior to his election as governor, Moore was a member of the boards of directors forUnder Armour andGreen Thumb Industries.[55][42][56][57] In October 2022, Moore announced that he would use ablind trust to hold his assets and resign from every board position if elected governor.[58][59] In May 2023, Moore finalized his trust, making him the first governor to have one sinceBob Ehrlich.[60] In May 2025, after similar conflict of interest concerns were raised about former governorLarry Hogan during his2024 U.S. Senate campaign, Moore signed into law a bill requiring future governors to put their assets into a blind trust or sign an agreement not to participate in decisions affecting their businesses.[61]
On April 27, 2010,Spiegel & Grau published his first book,The Other Wes Moore.[62] The 200-page book explores the lives of two young Baltimore boys who shared the same name and race, but largely different familial histories that leads them both down very different paths.[13][63][64] In December 2012, Moore announced thatThe Other Wes Moore would be developed into a feature film, withOprah Winfrey attached as an executive producer.[65] In September 2013,Ember published his second book,Discovering Wes Moore. The book maintains the message and story set out inThe Other Wes Moore, but is more accessible to young adults.[66] In April 2021,Unanimous Media announced it would adaptThe Other Wes Moore into a feature film.[67] As of June 2022, a film has yet to be produced.[68]
In January 2015, Moore wrote his third book,The Work.[69] In November 2016, he wroteThis Way Home, a young adult novel about Elijah, a high school basketball player, who emerges from a standoff with a local gang after they attempt to recruit him to their basketball team, and he refuses.[70] In March 2020, Moore and formerBaltimore Sun education reporter Erica L. Green wroteFive Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, which explores the2015 Baltimore protests from the perspectives of eight Baltimoreans who experienced it on the front lines.[71][72]
In April 2022,CNN accused Moore of embellishing his childhood and where he actually grew up.[73] Shortly after the article was published, Moore created a website that attempted to rebut the allegations.[74]
Lieutenant GeneralMichael R. Fenzel presents Moore with a Bronze Star Medal, 2024
On November 19, 2024, Moore was cited with aBronze Star Medal for meritorious service inAfghanistan. Lieutenant GeneralMichael R. Fenzel pinned the decoration on Moore on December 14. Fenzel recommended Moore for the Bronze Star in 2006 and encouraged Moore to list the award in his application for a White House fellowship. Fenzel assumed the medal would have been awarded by the time the fellows were named. In his view, Moore's medal was awarded 20 years late.[75] Moore failed to correct journalists who referred to him as a Bronze Star recipient, and he apologized for the mistake.[76][77][78]
In December 2025, theWashington Free Beacon accused Moore of exaggerating various details of his academic and military achievements on his 2006 White House fellowship application, in which he claimed to have graduated Oxford a year and a half earlier than he had, did not submit his doctoral thesis, was working toward adoctorate at Oxford, and was a "foremost expert" on Islamic extremism who authored four articles and featured in two books on the threat of radical Islam in Latin America. A spokesperson for Moore disputed the claims made by theFree Beacon, saying that Moore had submitted his thesis and that the website would be spreading a conspiracy theory by suggesting otherwise, though his office was unable to locate the four articles Moore claimed to have contributed to.[79] Julia Paolitto, the deputy head of university communications at Oxford University, clarified toWBFF that submitting a thesis to theBodleian Library was not a requirement to complete the university's MLitt program, but it was a requirement to confer degrees at a ceremony, which Moore did not have.[80] When asked about theFree Beacon report byArmstrong Williams ofThe Baltimore Sun, Moore described the story as a distraction and declined to release his doctoral thesis, saying that he was "not going to spend a second of my time trying to dig up a paper that I wrote 20 some odd years ago because a right-wing blog post is asking me to."[81]
Moore has repeatedly claimed that his great-grandfather, a pastor fromCharleston, South Carolina, had fled theKu Klux Klan by moving to Jamaica in 1924.[82][83][84] In February 2026, theWashington Free Beacon examined church records, which found that his grandfather was transferred to Jamaica to replace a pastor who had died.[85] Moore rejected theFree Beacon's reporting as coming from a "right-wing blog" during aCBS News town hall later that month, suggesting that the website "should ask the Ku Klux Klan" if his family story was true.[86]
During an August 2006 interview withC-SPAN, Moore said he identified as a "registered Democrat" who is "social moderate and strong fiscal conservative".[87] In September 2022, he reiterated his position on fiscal issues as being "fiscally responsible".[88] During his gubernatorial campaign, he was described as center-left[89] as well asprogressive.[90] He has been described as amoderate during his tenure as governor.[91][92]
Moore first expressed interest in politics in June 1996, telling aNew York Times reporter that he planned to attend law school and enter politics after two years at Valley Forge.[95] Moore first expressed interest in running for governor of Maryland during an interview withThe Baltimore Sun in 2006,[26] later tellingThe Baltimore Sun in October 2022 that he felt the idea of holding elected office only started to feel like a real possibility in 2020, when he was about to leave his job running Robin Hood.[34]
In April 2015, following the2015 Baltimore protests, Moore said that the demonstrations in Baltimore were a "long time coming"[100] and that Baltimore "must seize this moment to redress systemic problems and grow."[101] Moore attended the funeral forFreddie Gray but left early to catch a plane to Boston for a speech he was giving on urban poverty. He later said he "felt guilty being away, but it wasn't just that. An audience in Boston would listen to me talk about poverty, but at a historic moment in my own city's history, I wasMIA."[102] On the eighth anniversary of Gray's death in April 2023, Moore made a tweet calling his death a turning point for not just those who knew Gray personally, but the entire city.[103]
On April 6, 2022, Moore filed a complaint with the Maryland State Board of Elections against the gubernatorial campaign ofJohn King Jr., accusing "an unidentified party" of anonymously disseminating "false and disparaging information regarding Wes Moore via electronic mail and social media in an orchestrated attempt to disparage Mr. Moore and damage his candidacy." The complaint also suggested that King "may be responsible for this smear campaign", which the King campaign denied.[120][121] In April 2024, King's campaign was fined $2,000 after prosecutors connected the email address to anIP address used by Joseph O'Hearn, King's campaign manager.[122]
As governor, Moore testified for several of his administration's bills, making him the first governor to do so sinceMartin O'Malley.[139] During his first term, his legislative priorities included establishing a "service year option" for high school graduates,[140] removing regulations around new housing development,[141] and supporting military families through health care benefits, tax cuts, and employment opportunities.[142][143] He has also sought to undo or revise many of his predecessor's decisions, including the cancellation of theBaltimore Red Line,[144] the withholding of state funding for training abortion care providers,[145] and plans to expand portions of theCapital Beltway andInterstate 270 usinghigh-occupancy toll lanes.[146] During the 2025 legislative session, Moore and leaders of theMaryland General Assembly negotiated and passed a spending plan that cut $2.5 billion in state spending and raised more than $1 billion in new taxes to close a $3.3 billion budget deficit.[147][148]
TheFrancis Scott Key Bridge collapse occurred during Moore's tenure, after which he supported and signed into law legislation to provide financial assistance to workers and businesses affected by the subsequent closure of thePort of Baltimore.[149] Following the disaster, Moore has urgedCongress to pass legislation that would have the federal government cover the costs ofrebuilding the bridge.[150][151] In December 2024, PresidentJoe Biden signed into law acontinuing resolution bill that included a provision to fully fund the Francis Scott Key Bridge replacement.[152][153]
In July 2025, Moore was elected as the vice chair of theNational Governors Association (NGA).[154] In February 2026, PresidentDonald Trump excluded Moore and Colorado governorJared Polis from a bipartisan dinner event for governors and their spouses,[155] after which the NGA said they would no longer meet with Trump and multiple other Democratic governors said they would skip the event.[156] In a post onTruth Social, Trump confirmed he did not invite Moore while also making multiple baseless accusations against him.[157]
In December 2025,The Baltimore Banner reported that Moore and several members of his administration were, at times, communicating using theGoogle Chat platform with the "History is Off" function activated, which auto-deletes messages after 24 hours. State law requires that every unit of the state government to have policies defining which records need to be saved and which don't. In response to theBanner's findings, the Moore administration defended its use of self-deleting messages, saying that it was an "approved internal messaging feature" and "complies fully with all Maryland records laws and retention policies", but later said that the governor's office would work with theattorney general of Maryland to create a "uniform retention policy" across the executive branch.[158]
Moore and his family at his gubernatorial inauguration, 2023
Moore metDawn Flythe inWashington, D.C. in 2002.[159] They moved to theRiverside community inBaltimore in 2006.[160] The couple eloped in Las Vegas while he was on a brief leave from Afghanistan and were married by anElvis impersonator.[161] Their official wedding ceremony was held on July 6, 2007.[162] They have two children, born in 2011 and 2013.[163]
In late 2008, the Moores moved from Riverside toGuilford, where they lived until Moore's election as governor in 2022.[164] From 2015 to 2023, he attended services at the Southern Baptist Church in east Baltimore.[165] They reside inGovernment House, the official residence of the Maryland governor and First Family inAnnapolis, Maryland.[166]
In June 2013, aBaltimore Sun investigation alleged that Moore was improperly receiving homestead property tax credits and owed back taxes to the city of Baltimore. Moore toldThe Sun that he was unaware of any issues with the home's taxes and wanted to pay what he owed immediately.[160] In October 2022,Baltimore Brew reported that Moore had not paid any water and sewage charges since March 2021, owing $21,200 to the city of Baltimore.[173] Moore settled his outstanding bills shortly after the article was published.[174]
^Moore is the fifth black U.S. state governor, followingP. B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana,Douglas Wilder of Virginia,Deval Patrick of Massachusetts andDavid Paterson of New York. Pinchback and Paterson were not elected, but succeeded from the lieutenant governorship.[3]
^CNBC profileArchived July 18, 2022, at theWayback Machine, Robin Hood Foundation CEO Wes Moore: ‘Have faith, not fear. I feel that has guided me’, February 16, 2021
^Moore, Wes."Discovering Wes Moore".Penguinrandomhouse.com. Penguin Random House.Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. RetrievedAugust 18, 2015.
^"Q&A with Westley Moore".c-span.org.C-SPAN. August 25, 2006.Archived from the original on November 9, 2014. RetrievedJuly 15, 2022.You know I look at my history and I look at the fact that I am, you know, I'm a social moderate. I'm a, you know, strong fiscal conservative. I'm a military officer. I'm an investment banker and I just happen to be also a registered Democrat.
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Afghanistan Campaign Medal
Armed Forces Reserve Medal with "M" devices
Army Service Ribbon
Bronze Star Medal
Combat Action Badge
National Defense Service Medal
Parachutist Badge
