OpenAI taps ex-Army Secretary for national security push
openai hires dan driscoll, former army secretary, as national security advisor to boost government contracts and defense ties. this move strengthens openai's position in us national security and defense.
openai has hired dan driscoll, the 26th secretary of the army, as a senior counselor for national security modernization. driscoll oversaw nearly one million soldiers and 265,000 civilian employees, driving ai modernization through project aria, an initiative that brought ai tools to budgeting, logistics, and tactical model deployment. he will work with governments, industry, academia, and us allies to strengthen national security and cyber defense through ai. openai is pushing hard to become the go-to ai company for us national security and defense, following a february 2026 pentagon contract for classified networks. this move comes after anthropic was shut out of a pentagon contract due to concerns over its ai restrictions.