OpenAI hires former White House cyber official Thomas Lind for national security
OpenAI hired Thomas Lind, who led AI policy at the White House Office of the National Cyber Director until June, to lead cyber and strategic risk on its national security policy team, The Information reported Friday, with team head Sasha Baker confirming the hire on record.
The same week Washington argues about rebranding AI as “super intelligence,” OpenAI is pulling the White House’s recent AI-cyber policy lead onto its own national-security desk — with the hire confirmed on the record by the team’s boss. That is a talent move with a clear revolving-door signal, not a model launch.
On Friday, 2 October 2026, The Information reported that OpenAI hired Thomas Lind to lead cyber and strategic risk on its national security policy team. The article is by Leo Schwartz. PYMNTS carried the report the same day. That page stamps October 2, 2026, and does not print an hour. The sentences here follow PYMNTS’s relay, which cites The Information and the head of the team. Cyber, in the job, means computer and network security. Strategic risk is the longer-range danger that comes with more capable AI, not only one break-in. A national security policy team is the group inside the company that works on how the technology meets governments’ security needs. Those lines are The Information’s, as PYMNTS relays them.
When he started. Lind joined OpenAI this week, the report says. On a story dated Friday, 2 October 2026, this week is the week of that Friday. The pages do not print the weekday he started. Those lines are PYMNTS, citing The Information.
The White House job he is leaving behind. Lind served at the Office of the National Cyber Director from April 2025 to June 2026. The office is shortened to ONCD. It is the White House office that coordinates how the federal government handles cybersecurity. Most recently he was head of policy and senior advisor to the director. Head of policy is the person leading that office’s policy work. A senior advisor to the director works for the person who runs the office. PYMNTS attributes the dates and the titles to his LinkedIn profile. The pages do not print a salary for the White House job or for the OpenAI job. Those lines are PYMNTS, from the profile the report cites.
Who runs the team he joined. OpenAI’s national security policy team is led by Sasha Baker. She is a former deputy undersecretary of defense for policy in the Biden administration. That title is a senior civilian job at the Pentagon, under the undersecretary who runs the department’s policy work. Those lines are The Information’s, as PYMNTS relays them. The pages do not print how many people sit on the team.
What Baker said, with her name on it. She told The Information: “Tom is a key addition to our national security team, bringing expertise across AI policy, cybersecurity and strategic risk. His hire reflects OpenAI’s continued investment in addressing the national security challenges of increasingly capable AI and ensuring this technology is used to benefit and protect the country. His expertise is even more important as AI becomes central to the national security agenda, with the Office of National Cyber Director playing a growing role in shaping AI policy.” That quotation is hers. PYMNTS carries it as words she told The Information. On the record means the paper named her as the person who said it.
What was already reported when he left the White House. PYMNTS says Politico reported in June that Lind was planning to leave ONCD to spend more time with his family. The same account says that report described a string of departures among White House tech-policy leaders after President Donald Trump signed an AI executive order on June 2. From a page dated 2 October 2026, that June is June 2026. An executive order is a directive the president signs. The pages do not print the order’s title, and they do not name the other people who left. Those lines are PYMNTS, citing Politico. They describe the departure. They are not OpenAI’s account of the new job.
The picture is a split card. The left side is a headshot of Thomas Lind from his INSA speaker page. He has short dark hair and light stubble, and he wears a navy suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie, with a slight smile. The backdrop is blue and white. INSA is the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. The right side is a charcoal panel. Small type reads POLITICS. White type reads Thomas Lind, then OpenAI, national security. A line says he leads cyber and strategic risk, and that he is the former ONCD AI policy chief. Two bars read ONCD and OpenAI. The frame does not print a calendar date. It is his portrait with a card. It is not a photograph of an OpenAI office.
In plain terms, The Information reported on Friday that OpenAI hired Thomas Lind to lead cyber and strategic risk on the national security policy team run by Sasha Baker, and PYMNTS’s same-day account says he joined this week. He was at the White House Office of the National Cyber Director from April 2025 to June 2026, most recently as head of policy and senior advisor to the director, according to the LinkedIn profile the report cites. Baker, a former deputy undersecretary of defense for policy in the Biden administration, confirmed the hire to The Information and called him a key addition. Politico, as PYMNTS cites it, reported in June that he planned to leave the cyber office to spend more time with his family, during a run of White House tech-policy departures after a June 2 AI executive order. A revolving door, here, is someone leaving a government post and soon taking a related job outside government. The report does not print a salary, a share of the company, or the size of the team.