OpenAI Hires Ex-Army Secretary for Security Role

OpenAI brought on Dan Driscoll, who stepped down as Secretary of the Army earlier this year, to a newly created post called "Senior Counselor for National Security Modernization." The hire lands weeks ahead of the midterms and follows a pattern OpenAI has been building since February 2026, when it beat out Anthropic for a Pentagon contract covering classified networks.

Driscoll brings something OpenAI can't manufacture in-house: relationships in Congress and inside the Pentagon built over years running Army modernization efforts, including its push to adopt AI tools. The Wall Street Journal frames the hire as OpenAI positioning itself for a bigger slice of government contracts and a direct hand in shaping how the military and intelligence agencies write their AI rules.

OpenAI says Driscoll's job will involve coordinating with governments, allied militaries, industry partners, and academic researchers on AI-driven security and cyber defense work. He's also supposed to translate field-level needs from security agencies back to OpenAI's engineering teams, a feedback loop the company has struggled to build on its own. Driscoll has already started making the case publicly for why that matters now.