Former Palantir CISO Dane Stuckey joins OpenAI to lead security

Dane Stuckey, former CISO of analytics company Palantir, has joined OpenAI as its new CISO, working alongside OpenAI’s head of security Matt Knight.

Stuckey announced the move in a post on X Tuesday evening.

“Security is integral to OpenAI’s mission,” he said. “It is imperative that we meet the highest standards of compliance, trust, and security to protect the hundreds of millions of users of our products, enable democratic institutions to benefit from this technology, and advance the development of safer AGI in the world. I’m excited about this next chapter, and I can’t wait to help secure a future where AI benefits us all.”

Stuckey started at Palantir in 2014 on the information security team as a detection engineer and incident response lead. Prior to joining Palantir, Stuckey spent more than a decade in various commercial, government, and public intelligence academic, incident detection/response, and security systems development roles, according to his blog.

Stuckey’s work at Palantir, an AI company rich in government contracts, may help advance OpenAI’s ambitions in this area. Forbes reports that, through its partner Carahsoft, a government contractor, OpenAI wants to establish a close relationship with the US Department of Defense.

Since lifting its ban on selling AI technology to the military in January, OpenAI has worked with the Pentagon on several software projects, including those related to cybersecurity. It also appointed the former head of the National Security Agency, General Paul Nakasone, who has retired, as a board member.

OpenAI has been strengthening the security side of its operations in recent months.

A few weeks ago, the company posted a job listing for a head of trusted computing and cryptography to lead a new team focused on building a “secure AI infrastructure.” This infrastructure will include AI technology security capabilities, security tool testing, and access controls that “enhance AI security,” according to the definition.