{"id":11146,"date":"2026-07-20T03:42:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T22:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=11146"},"modified":"2026-07-20T03:42:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T22:42:45","slug":"top-pentagon-official-blasts-openais-dean-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=11146","title":{"rendered":"Top Pentagon official blasts OpenAI&#039;s Dean Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/gd2W4d-O-XzpQZW6XeqW67EtsxY=\/0x52:5074x2906\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/19\/1784497170597.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A senior Trump administration official and key adviser<strong> <\/strong>are slamming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/technology\/automation-and-ai\" target=\"_blank\">OpenAI <\/a>head of strategic futures Dean Ball&#8217;s views on regulation, casting a shadow on the future of the company&#8217;s relationship with the government. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>The criticism targets a former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/06\/18\/dean-ball-openai\" target=\"_blank\">White House architect<\/a> of the administration&#8217;s AI Action Plan who now works at OpenAI, potentially complicating the company&#8217;s relationship with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>State of play:  <\/strong>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/politics-policy\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\">Trump<\/a> administration is grappling with how to balance competition and cybersecurity concerns as increasingly capable Chinese AI models come onto the scene. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ball said the Trump administration would eventually land on creating regulatory risk around using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/world\/china\" target=\"_blank\">Chinese<\/a> models as &#8220;their best strategy.&#8221; <\/li>\n<li>That prompted outside White House AI adviser David Sacks <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/deanwball\/status\/2078827994785644675\" target=\"_blank\">to question whether<\/a> Ball was advocating for regulatory capture \u2014 a scenario that would benefit Ball&#8217;s new employer OpenAI. <\/li>\n<li>Ball in another <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/deanwball\/status\/2078619513575137330?s=46&amp;t=Y5V46qKGPbCSUvDEK6s0Tw\" target=\"_blank\">X post<\/a> over the weekend clarified he was not proposing &#8220;ill-justified soft-law discouragement of Chinese AI&#8221; as a good idea.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom in: <\/strong>&#8220;Every industry\/ecosystem has its supreme village idiot. <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/deanwball\" target=\"_blank\">@deanwball<\/a> is that for AI,&#8221; Defense under secretary Emil Michael <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/USWREMichael\/status\/2078924719538262107\" target=\"_blank\">said Sunday on X<\/a>. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Dean Ball has perhaps the biggest gap between actual IQ and his own perceived IQ of anyone in the industry (about 40 points).&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Michael was arguing against Ball&#8217;s point that various government agencies, including the Pentagon, have blocked employees from using Chinese AI, which has already sent a message to regulated companies.<\/li>\n<li>That happened through a &#8220;democratic process,&#8221; Michael said, &#8220;not some Deep State scheme.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What we&#8217;re watching:<\/strong> The Pentagon has not shied away from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Zp3wcnKGCMo\" target=\"_blank\">going ad hominem <\/a>as seen in a fight with Anthropic earlier this year. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The relationship quickly deteriorated: Anthropic was deemed a national security risk and had to take the government to court. <\/li>\n<li>The spat between Ball and key Trump officials could translate to larger scrutiny of OpenAI.<\/li>\n<li>Ball, the Pentagon and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Axios&#8217; Sunday evening request for comment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A senior Trump administration official and key adviser are slamming OpenAI head of strategic futures Dean Ball&#8217;s views on regulation, casting a shadow on the future of the company&#8217;s relationship with the government. Why it matters: The criticism targets a former White House architect of the administration&#8217;s AI Action Plan who now works at OpenAI,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/gd2W4d-O-XzpQZW6XeqW67EtsxY=\/0x52:5074x2906\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/19\/1784497170597.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}