OpenAI adds retired US Army General Paul Nakasone, who led the NSA and US Cyber Command, to its board of directors and its Safety and Security Committee
The appointment connects OpenAI’s safety oversight to a figure whose prior roles spanned the NSA and US Cyber Command. It follows the NSA’s creation of an AI security center focused on protecting US AI models, placing model security and national-security experience closer to OpenAI’s board-level governance.
Related coverage later shows OpenAI moving to a fully independent Safety and Security Committee. That makes Nakasone’s addition notable less as a standalone advisory hire than as part of a broader effort to formalize independent oversight around advanced AI risks.
First-order effects
OpenAI gains a director with senior cyber-defense and intelligence experience on both its board and Safety and Security Committee, broadening the committee’s security expertise.
The committee’s deliberations can more directly incorporate perspectives shaped by protecting critical systems and assessing cyber vulnerabilities.
Second-order effects
The move raises the governance bar for other frontier-model developers: safety committees and boards may face greater pressure to demonstrate credible cyber and national-security expertise.
It strengthens the link between AI safety governance and model-security practice, making security credentials more consequential for advisors, auditors, and institutional partners.
Third-order effects
If such appointments become routine, frontier AI governance may evolve toward a state-compatible model in which national-security, cybersecurity, and product-safety considerations are handled together at board level.
That shift could improve preparedness for dual-use risks while also concentrating influence among firms able to recruit former senior government and security officials.
The trend: Frontier AI companies are embedding national-security and cyber-risk expertise into formal governance as advanced models are increasingly treated as dual-use strategic technologies.
This is a huge red flag for OpenAI. Former head of the National Security Agency, retired Gen. Paul Nakasone has joined OpenAI. Anyone using OpenAI going forward, you just need to understand that the US govt has full operating control and influence over this app. There is no [imag…
Ret. Gen. Nakasone is a smart hire since OpenAI needs to protect itself from sophisticated bad actors, and even nation-states. This AI wave also has clear implications for the IC. Snowden-era revelations told us that NSA can “collect it all” - but now it can “know it all”. [video…
General Nakasone, please take the time to speak to people in the AI safety field, and ask them who else you should speak to. For a start, talk to some of the high-profile people who have left OpenAI, and talk to MIRI.
Paul M. Nakasone brings world-class cybersecurity expertise to OpenAI's Board of Directors, helping us deliver on our mission by protecting our systems from increasingly sophisticated bad actors. https://openai.com/...
excited for general paul nakasone to join the openai board for many reasons, including the critical importance of adding safety and security expertise as we head into our next phase.
It's old hat for somebody to leave military/government/intelligence work to take a job in tech, but to go from running the NSA to sitting on OpenAI's board within a couple months is a new one. https://openai.com/...
Leopold Aschenbrenner said a week ago lab security would need to be run by government agencies to keep the weights secure. Paul M. Nakasone served as the director of the National Security Agency from May 2018 to February 2024. [image]