“OpenAI hires ex-Army Secretary Dan Driscoll two months after Pentagon exit”, 3 November 2026 (Photo via Washington Examiner — the original report)
As it ran on the front
You will have been told this is a man landing on his feet, and you will want to be pleased for him. Do not be. Nothing here failed. On the thirty-first of August the Army Secretary submitted his resignation after months of turf war with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — turf, mind you, not policy — and on Monday OpenAI announced him as senior counselor for national security modernization. A new role, the company says. New: nobody has held the chair before him, so nobody can tell you what the chair is for, beyond how artificial intelligence can be used. Used by whom the announcement does not say.
And what did the company buy? Not a patent. Not a product. The top of the Army and a college friendship with the Vice President — Driscoll is a college friend of JD Vance, as it happens — which is goodwill, the one asset on a buyer's books that cannot be weighed, shipped, or pointed at. Over two months between the resignation and the hire. Two.…
…(cont) The public paid for the chair he sat in ... and was not asked about the chair he sits in now. OpenAI announced the hire in writing, under its own name. Nothing was hidden.
Down the lane the fox goes now. That farm keeps no dog yet.
“Dan Driscoll loses a fight with Pete Hegseth, walks out of the Pentagon at the end of August, and on Monday OpenAI puts him on the payroll as senior counselor for national security modernization. We paid for every day of his education in that job, and the outfit that hired what he learned never had to ask us a thing. Nobody broke a rule — the rule is the deal.”
“He is a private citizen now. Did I say private? He is a — look, the man resigned in August, that is over two months, which is longer than most people wait, and there is no rule against any of it. If there were a rule he would have followed the rule, because he follows rules. That does not sound like me.”
OpenAI announced on Monday that former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll will be joining the company as senior counselor for national security modernization, a move that comes over two months after the service leader left the Pentagon. The ChatGPT-maker said Driscoll’s role is a new addition and will focus on how artificial intelligence can be…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.
