WASHINGTON – The Pentagon on March 6 named as chief data officer a computer scientist who aided billionaire
Elon Musk’s efforts to overhaul the government
in 2025 and who has boosted white supremacists and misogynists online.
In a social media post, the Pentagon said Mr Gavin Kliger’s new role “places him at the centre of the department’s most ambitious AI efforts,” focusing on “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 did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for more comment.
Mr Kliger did not immediately return a message.
Mr Kliger, in social media posts between October 2024 and January 2025, has voiced controversial views and reposted content from white supremacist Nick Fuentes and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate.
The Pentagon’s use of artificial intelligence has taken centre stage, after a heated weeks-long dispute with Anthropic over guardrails on how the military can use its AI tools led to last week’s decision by the Trump administration to
shun the company
and replace it with OpenAI.
On March 5, the Pentagon slapped a formal supply-chain risk designation on Anthropic – an extraordinary rebuke by the US against an American tech company that was earlier than its rivals to work with the Pentagon.
Anthropic was the most aggressive of its rivals in courting US national-security officials. But the company and the Pentagon have been at odds for months over
how the military can use its technology
on the battlefield. This conflict erupted into public view earlier this year.
Anthropic has refused to back down on bans for its Claude AI to power autonomous weapons and mass US surveillance.
The Pentagon has pushed back, saying it should be able to use this technology as needed, so long as it complies with US law. REUTERS
