OpenAI said on 2 November that it has hired Dan Driscoll, until recently the US Army secretary, into a newly created post: senior counselor for national security modernization. He will advise on how advanced AI can strengthen national and cyber security, concentrating on work with American allies, and help OpenAI's teams grasp what national security institutions need.
“by cutting through paperwork, making sense of more information, and getting the right answer to the right person faster”
Dan Driscoll, on what AI will do for those who serve, in OpenAI's announcement · implicator.ai ↗
Driscoll ran the Army for about 18 months, a force of nearly one million Active, Guard and Reserve soldiers plus more than 265,000 civilians. Earlier he was a venture capital and private equity investor. The job builds on OpenAI's Daybreak programme for cyber resilience with allies and on OpenAI for Government, launched in June 2025. OpenAI has since agreed to put its models into classified Pentagon environments, after Anthropic's talks with the military broke down.
Sam Altman said the US can work with other countries to spread democratic AI and that Driscoll will strengthen American leadership. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly called him highly effective. Neither Pete Hegseth nor the Pentagon commented, and observers expect conflict-of-interest scrutiny of moves from defence into tech.
His recent career has been turbulent. A former adviser to JD Vance, Trump made him special envoy for Ukraine in November 2025, and he gave Volodymyr Zelensky the US peace plan in Kyiv on 19 November. The Telegraph reported Hegseth removed him from the talks in December, yet he joined the Abu Dhabi round in February; the WSJ linked his exit to disagreements with Hegseth over the Army's direction. Meduza dates his departure to late August, Implicator to September.
About Dan Driscoll
Dan Driscoll is a US Army veteran of the Iraq war and a former venture capital and private equity investor who served about 18 months as US Army secretary.
He met JD Vance at Yale Law School and later advised him. When Donald Trump nominated him as Army secretary in 2024, he called Driscoll "a disruptor and change agent". In November 2025 Driscoll was named Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and presented Volodymyr Zelensky with the US peace plan in Kyiv on 19 November. The Telegraph reported in late December that Pete Hegseth had removed him from the talks, but he still took part in the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi in February 2026.
Semafor's Ashley Gold noted that other firms are hiring Democrats ahead of the midterms while OpenAI took on a Republican tied to Vance. What remains open is how the Pentagon and Congress will see a recently departed secretary advising a company that wants defence work.
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