U.S. Pentagon faucets former DOGE official to guide its AI efforts

The Pentagon on Friday named as Chief Information Officer a ‌laptop scientist who aided billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts ​to overtake the federal government final 12 months and ⁠who has boosted white supremacists and misogynists on-line.

In a social media put up, the Pentagon mentioned Gavin Kliger’s new position “locations him on the ‌heart of the Division’s most bold AI efforts,” specializing in “day-to-day alignment and execution of the Division’s ‌AI tasks, working instantly with America’s frontier AI ‌labs ⁠to help the warfighter.” The Pentagon didn’t ⁠instantly reply to a Reuters request for extra remark. Kliger didn’t instantly return a message.

Kliger, in social media posts between October ​2024 and January 2025, ‌has voiced controversial views and reposted content material from white supremacist Nick Fuentes and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate.

The Pentagon’s use of AI has taken heart stage after ‌a heated weeks-long dispute with Anthropic over guardrails on ​how the army can use its AI instruments led to final week’s determination by the ⁠Trump administration to shun the corporate and exchange it with OpenAI.

On Thursday, the Pentagon slapped a proper supply-chain ‌threat designation on Anthropic, a rare rebuke by the US towards an American tech firm that was sooner than its rivals to work with the Pentagon.

Anthropic was probably the most aggressive of its rivals in courting U.S. national-security officers. However the firm and the Pentagon ‌have been at odds for months over how the army ​can use its know-how on the battlefield. This battle erupted into public view earlier this 12 months.

Anthropic ⁠has refused to again down on bans for its ⁠Claude AI to energy autonomous weapons and mass U.S. surveillance. The Pentagon has pushed again, saying it ‌ought to be capable to use this know-how as wanted, as long as it complies with U.S. ​legislation.