The Trump administration replaces some of the country’s best technological officials with Silicon Valley talents linked to Elon Musk and companies associated with Peter Thiel. This could allow so -called Department of Efficiency Department (DOGE) to Musk access to sensitive government systems, sources and experts.
In recent weeks, several technology chiefs lined up by Musc have been installed as information managers, or DSI, at the management and budget office, the staff management office and the Ministry of Energy . CIOs manage an agency information technologies and oversee access to sensitive databases and systems, including classified bases.
“The Federal Agency CIOs have an authority over all asset management agencies, which include software used to monitor computers and civil servant phones,” said Wired, a former Biden official with knowledge of First hand of the capacities of a IOC. Databases and systems and have monitoring on all IT contracts by Fitara [the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act]. They have a lot of budget and head counting that Musk might want to take over. In agencies, CIOs are functionally as powerful as OIG [the Office of Inspectors General]. “”
So far, these new CIOs have all been appointed. In most agencies, however, the position is held by career officials. Last week, the Staff Management Office (OPM) Imade a new memo This would reclassify these non -partisan roles, essentially allowing the Trump administration to replace the ISDs at will to better carry out its program. The appointments made so far can serve as an indicator of which will take control of the government’s IT services once the order comes into force.
At the end of last month, Bargory Barbaccia Was hired as Federal Information Director, a position in the Management and Budget Office (OMB), which oversees the performance of all federal agencies and administers the budget. LinkedIn de Barbaccia shows that he has spent most of his career in technology, including a 10 -year passage to Palantir. When Barbaccia left Palantant in 2020, his role was the head of intelligence and investigations. The CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp, recently referred to the “disturbance” of DOGE cost reduction initiatives and said: “Everything that is good for America will be good for Americans and very good for Palantant. »» Company has Billions of government contracts. Palant’s actions reached a summit of all time last week after a better than expected quarterly results report. Last week, Palantir announcement plans to integrate the large Musk Grok model model with the Palantir IA platform.
Ryan Riedel was installed as information director of the Ministry of Energy (DOE) last week, according to reports E & E News. In the DOE in particular, the IOC supervises all technological operations as well as cybersecurity initiatives, in addition to the elements of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the stocks of nuclear weapons of the United States. Riedel would have worked as a “main network security engineer” at Musk’s Rocket Company SpaceX.
Although not all the new CIOs were direct links with Musk or Palantant, they all have deep connections from Silicon Valley. Greg Hogan is now the OPM CIOwhich is essentially the HR service of the American government. Hogan would have been a special government employee and not a full -time OPM employee, According to a recent trial. Hogan previously worked at Command.ai, a company that builds automated driving software. Musk would have launched a job offer to the former CEO of Comm. would have bitten After Hotz said its autonomous technology was greater than Tesla.
