{"id":36648,"date":"2026-08-10T15:15:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T10:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=36648"},"modified":"2026-08-10T15:15:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T10:15:51","slug":"openai-risks-white-house-relationship-with-hiring-of-nuisance-ai-policy-executive-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=36648","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI risks White House relationship with hiring of &#8216;nuisance&#8217; AI policy executive: sources"},"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:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F08%2F136747368.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Top OpenAI official Dean Ball is in the middle of a heated feud with the Trump administration \u2013 and White House officials warn that Sam Altman\u2019s firm risked its relationship with the government by hiring him for a senior role, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n<p>Ball infuriated Trump AI officials last month <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/deanwball\/status\/2078133895766114412\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">after claiming in an X post<\/a> that the White House should create \u201cregulatory risk\u201d \u2014 or new rules imposing consequences on US firms \u2014 to discourage use of Chinese AI models. White House AI czar David Sacks <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DavidSacks\/status\/2078826291638522127\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">questioned if Ball was \u201cconfessing to a regulatory capture strategy\u201d<\/a> to benefit OpenAI, while Pentagon AI chief <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/USWREMichael\/status\/2078924719538262107\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Emil Michael slammed Ball as the AI world\u2019s \u201csupreme village idiot.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The incident was just the latest sign of long-simmering bad blood between key White House figures and Ball, who served a four-month stint on Trump\u2019s AI team from April to August of last year. Ball became a vocal critic of Trump\u2019s AI strategy after leaving the administration, even as he billed himself as a key architect of the White House\u2019s high-profile AI Action Plan<strong> <\/strong>\u2014 a detailed roadmap for how the US could win the AI race.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Dean Ball recently joined OpenAI as its head of strategic futures. <span class=\"credit\">Youtube<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Three White House officials with direct knowledge of the matter allege that Ball has exaggerated his role on that project. The officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the situation, described Ball as a \u201cjunior-to-mid-level policy analyst\u201d whose ideas were regularly ignored by decision-makers \u2013 and say he never obtained a security clearance, which is needed to participate in high-level discussions.<\/p>\n<p>One of the officials said it was the \u201cmost ludicrous assertion imaginable\u201d that Ball played a senior role in crafting the AI Action Plan.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cEveryone who was actually involved in architecting it is way too nice to say it in frank terms,\u201d the official said. \u201cHe was at best a nuisance and at worst irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0A source close to Ball pushed back on claims that he exaggerated his work at the White House, noting that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hyperdimensional.co\/p\/heres-what-i-think-we-should-do\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a blueprint written by Ball shortly<\/a> after the 2024 election for the new administration touches on many of the concepts \u2014 such as maintaining export controls on AI chips, rewriting the National Institute of Standard and Technology\u2019s AI Risk Management Framework, and building automated labs \u2014 that ended up in the AI Action Plan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Asked for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jasonkwon\/status\/2067646850333651165\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pointed to a June 18 tweet<\/a> by the company\u2019s chief strategy officer Jason Kwon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReally glad Dean is joining OpenAI,\u201d Kwon wrote. \u201cHe\u2019s spent a lot of time thinking seriously about the biggest questions frontier labs need to get right: risk, governance, frontier policy issues, and what comes next. We won\u2019t always agree on everything, which is a good thing. This is a really important moment for these debates, and we\u2019ll be better for having him pressure-test and shape our thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ball\u2019s role will be focused on research rather than lobbying or political outreach, the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u2018A little puzzled\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Tensions between Ball and the White House first came to a head last February during the administration\u2019s high-profile spat with Anthropic \u2013 when he became one of the loudest voices defending CEO Dario Amodei\u2019s firm <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/27\/business\/trump-orders-federal-agencies-to-stop-using-anthropics-ai-models-says-leftwing-nut-jobs-made-disastrous-mistake\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">after President Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using its models<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/12\/business\/anthropic-would-pollute-us-military-supply-chain-pentagon-official-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ball called the Pentagon\u2019s decision to label Anthropic<\/a> as a supply-chain risk <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/deanwball\/status\/2027521251263000765\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a \u201cpsychotic power grab\u201d and \u201calmost certainly illegal.\u201d<\/a> He also outlined his problems with the Pentagon\u2019s approach during an widely-cited interview on \u201cThe Ezra Klein Show.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a Substack post announcing his hiring as OpenAI\u2019s \u201chead of strategic futures\u201d in June, Ball, 34, wrote that he would be \u201ccharged with shaping frontier AI policy,\u201d including \u201ccatastrophic risk, recursive self-improvement, labor market impact, and the relationship between the frontier labs, governments (particularly the US federal government), and society.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Dean Ball spent four months working in the Trump administration. <span class=\"credit\">Dean Ball<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The White House is \u201ca little puzzled by what value OpenAI sees in hiring him\u201d given Ball\u2019s tense relationships with some of his former colleagues, a second administration official said.<\/p>\n<p>Any backlash against Ball could also cause trouble for OpenAI, which so far has avoided the kind of public criticism and backlash that its chief rival Anthropic has regularly faced in its dealings with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to and continue to work with OpenAI, just given its importance and our other relationships at the firm, including Sam,\u201d the second official said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks at a panel discussion on potentials, perspectives and challenges in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the Technical University (TU) in Berlin on Friday, February 7, 2025.  <span class=\"credit\">AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cBut [Ball] isn\u2019t helping, and his idiotic commentary on X about our AI policies that\u2019s rooted in the fake premise that he has an insider perspective into our operations is actively undermining OpenAI. He has and continues to turn a lot of people off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first official added that Ball, who lacks a technical background in AI research or development, was \u201cseen as sort of silly and underinformed\u201d during his time at the White House and often suggested ideas that ran afoul of the vision outlined by decision-makers, including Sacks and White House tech adviser\u00a0Michael Kratsios.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Pentagon AI chief Emil Michael blasted Dean Ball as a \u201csupreme village idiot.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe overwhelming consensus on everyone that has worked with him during his time here was that his recommendations were often minimally listened to, and that the sort of ideological and intellectual direction that he was approaching a policy from was extremely contrary to the president\u2019s own priorities about American AI dominance,\u201d the first official added.<\/p>\n<p>On his personal website, Ball describes himself as a \u201cSenior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he was the primary staff drafter of America\u2019s AI Action Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe gets a lot of play around Washington as someone who is in the know when it comes to how the Trump administration is thinking about AI policy when the vast majority of people who are responsible for actually devising and implementing AI policy and who the president actually consults find him to be silly and irrelevant,\u201d the first White House official said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>David Sacks questioned if Dean Ball was \u201cconfessing to a regulatory capture strategy.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">Getty Images for Hill &amp; Valley Forum<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After leaving the White House, Ball worked at the Foundation for American Innovation, a tech-focused Washington, DC, think tank, and as a policy fellow at the AI policy nonprofit Fathom. In the past, he worked as a research fellow for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u2018Thought leader\u2019 claim<\/h2>\n<p>Fathom CEO Andrew Freedman defended Ball in an interview with The Post, describing him as an \u201cintellectual thought leader\u201d whose views on AI policy were widely read inside the Beltway even before he joined the White House. Freedman asserted that Ball has gained respect \u2014 and some enemies \u2014 precisely because he is willing to speak honestly when he disagrees with the administration.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The OpenAI logo is seen in an illustration on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (REUTERS) <span class=\"credit\">REUTERS<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAnybody who said [Ball] had anything but a very significant role in crafting the White House AI Action Plan is engaging in some pretty hardcore retconning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The social media uproar last month centered on Ball\u2019s remarks regarding Kimi K3, an open-source model made by Beijing-based Moonshot AI that claims capabilities similar to those of OpenAI and Anthropic.<\/p>\n<p>US officials have been voicing concern about the rise of open-source models, which are made available for a fraction of the cost of the closed-source models offered by US frontier labs.<\/p>\n<p>In a lengthy X post, Ball argued the long-term success of open-source models would lead to \u201cfull AI communism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would guess that the Trump Administration will at some point realize that their best strategy here would be to create large amounts of regulatory risk around the use of open Chinese models,\u201d Ball wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Sacks fired back, writing that Ball\u2019s call for the \u201cweaponization of regulatory uncertainty as a competitive tool should be completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon\u2019s Michael waded into the fray after Ball asserted that key government agencies, including the War Department, had \u201calready used ill-justified claims of danger\u201d to block employees from using Chinese AI.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDean Ball has perhaps the biggest gap between actual IQ and his own perceived IQ of anyone in the industry (about 40 points),\u201d Michael wrote.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\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>Top OpenAI official Dean Ball is in the middle of a heated feud with the Trump administration \u2013 and White House officials warn that Sam Altman\u2019s firm risked its relationship with the government by hiring him for a senior role, The Post has learned. Ball infuriated Trump AI officials last month after claiming in an&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/136747368.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36648","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=36648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}