Former DOGE Recruits Raise $130 Million for AI Security Startup as Ethics Concerns Shadow Pentagon Ties
Updated
Updated · Vanity Fair · Jun 12
Former DOGE Recruits Raise $130 Million for AI Security Startup as Ethics Concerns Shadow Pentagon Ties
2 articles · Updated · Vanity Fair · Jun 12
Summary
$130 million is being raised by former DOGE engineers Gavin Kliger, Luke Farritor and Jack Stein for an AI startup aimed at securing U.S. government systems against national-security threats.
Kliger pushed the effort after seeing Anthropic's Mythos model could reportedly be used to hack critical systems, convincing him the government was unprepared for AI's capabilities.
The company plans to build on outside AI models rather than develop its own, and Kliger's Pentagon work included AI contracting and GenAI.mil before he left government in April.
That Pentagon overlap is drawing scrutiny because the startup will likely sell to Kliger's former agency; a Defense Department official said he faces a one-year cooling-off period, though teammates would not.
The round also reflects a wider DOGE-to-defense pipeline as investors chase government-adjacent AI—defense tech drew a record $49.1 billion last year—even as watchdogs warn revolving-door safeguards are weak.