OpenAI has reportedly hired Mark Esper, Donald Trump’s former defense secretary, to help expand its military AI work.
He ran the Army from 2017 to 2019, then led the whole Pentagon until he was fired in November 2020.
Before that, he spent 7 years running government relations at Raytheon, so he knows weapons buying from both sides.
As defense secretary, he also backed the Pentagon’s early AI ethics programs, which gives him standing on the limits OpenAI says it enforces.