Gov. Ron DeSantis personally contacted conservative scholar Robert P. George about the University of Florida presidency after the Board of Governors rejected Santa J. Ono, according to multiple administrators and operatives. George declined and recommended Donald Landry, who later became interim president. The episode exposed direct gubernatorial involvement in a public flagship’s presidential search and signaled a shift in the university’s power dynamics. It also highlighted friction between Board of Trustees chair Morteza Hosseini—long a dominant figure at UF—and the governor’s office over priorities such as national rankings, ideological alignment, and the campus stance on diversity programs. The intervention matters for public‑university governance across states: elected officials and donors are increasingly inserting themselves into senior academic hires, altering how institutions balance academic credentials, leadership experience, and political acceptability.