OpenAI, the world's most valuable artificial intelligence company, is likely being targeted by espionage from multiple nation-states, warns Josh Steinman, a former Trump National Security Council staffer and cybersecurity company founder.
.@JoshuaSteinman: "I would be willing to bet a large amount of information that OpenAI is completely penetrated by multiple intelligence agencies—and has been for a while." pic.twitter.com/a8JCSeijFD
— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) May 6, 2025
"I would be willing to bet a large amount of information that OpenAI is completely penetrated by multiple intelligence agencies—and has been for a while,” Steinman, co-founder and CEO of Galvanick, a cybersecurity company building tools to secure industrial infrastructure and AI systems,
said in an interview with World of DaaS with Auren Hoffman.
When asked how companies can prevent espionage, Steinman conceded it's challenging but emphasized that rigorous and selective hiring practices are key. “You just have to be very mindful of who you’re hiring and where you are putting them in your company,” Steinman told Hoffman. “You need to be realistic about who your employees are.”
Watch the full interview:
Steinman referenced a bombshell Wall Street Journal report that alleges Chinese officials, during a secret meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in December 2024, privately acknowledged their role in the Volt Typhoon cyberattacks targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. According to the Journal, the officials’ remarks were “indirect” and “somewhat ambiguous” but sufficient to tie Volt Typhoon and the Chinese government to the relentless cyber assaults on American systems.
The campaign, believed to have started no later than 2023, has unleashed chaos, breaching major U.S. phone carriers, electric utilities, IT firms, internet providers, and government agencies. Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, two Chinese groups, have been repeatedly linked to these hacks.
In July 2024, OpenAI disclosed it was the victim of a security breach in 2023 that exposed internal AI technology secrets, sparking fresh concerns of espionage by foreign adversaries, particularly China. According to the New York Times, a hacker infiltrated OpenAI’s internal messaging systems, accessing employee discussions about AI designs.
As president-elect, Trump’s transition team signaled a more aggressive stance against Chinese cyberattacks. Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition, told News News that the administration was “committed to imposing costs on private and nation-state actors who continue to steal our data and attack our infrastructure.”
“The Trump Administration is committed to imposing costs on private and nation state actors who continue to steal our data and attack our infrastructure,” Hughes added at the time.
