Fauci has little man syndrome similar to a Napoleonic Complex. Basically, small men feel a compelling need to overachieve to compensate for their lack of physical stature. If often leads to bad decisions, often made to make oneself look smarter, tougher, quicker, etc. Fauci has it in spades. He loves camera time because when focused on head and shoulders you can't tell how short he is. So in that sense he feels equal. It's when he stands next to someone like Trump that it really kicks into high gear. He has a need to be the authority in his field. He is the highest paid Government worker in the country. Higher than POTUS.

The trouble is that Fauci isn't the smartest guy in the room by a long shot and yet everyone differs to him. He is conflicted on a number of levels. He helped fund gain of function research in Wuhan lab where the virus got loose. He personally holds a number of patents that were developed by underlings at the NIH but which he took personal ownership of. In most if not all jobs where people do research, new discoveries that are patented belong to the parent company or institution who pays the researchers for their work. In this case patents were filed in Fauci's name and therefore are his property. A deep dive is needed to see who and how these discoveries were made and by what right did he derive ownership of the patents.