The Pentagon has appointed a computer scientist who has amplified white supremacists and misogynists online as its new Chief Data Officer, placing him at the heart of the Department’s ambitious artificial intelligence initiatives.
Gavin Kliger, who previously assisted billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to overhaul government operations, will now oversee the “day-to-day alignment and execution of the Department’s AI projects, working directly with America’s frontier AI labs to support the warfighter,” the Pentagon stated in a social media post.
Between October 2024 and January 2025, Kliger’s social media posts included controversial views and reposted content from figures such as white supremacist Nick Fuentes and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate. Neither the Pentagon nor Mr. Kliger immediately responded to requests for comment.
This appointment unfolds amid significant tensions surrounding the Pentagon’s AI strategy. The administration recently opted to replace Anthropic with OpenAI after a heated, weeks-long dispute over guardrails for military AI tools.
The Pentagon further escalated matters by issuing a formal supply-chain risk designation against Anthropic – an extraordinary rebuke for an American tech company that had previously been a frontrunner in partnering with the defense sector.
Despite Anthropic’s aggressive courtship of US national-security officials, the company and the Pentagon have been at odds for months over how its technology could be deployed on the battlefield, a conflict that became public earlier this year.
Anthropic has steadfastly refused to permit its Claude AI to power autonomous weapons or mass US surveillance. The Pentagon, conversely, has asserted it “should be able to use this technology as needed, so long as it complies with U.S. law.”
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