OpenAI Hires Ex-Trump AI Adviser to Lead New Policy Unit

OpenAI hired Dean Ball, a former White House artificial intelligence adviser, to lead a new policy unit called Strategic Futures. Ball starts July 6 and reports to Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon.

Ball helped draft the White House's AI Action Plan released last summer and left the administration shortly after. He then joined the Foundation for American Innovation as a senior fellow, a role he keeps while at OpenAI. In March, Ball became a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Before government work, Ball held roles at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, Stanford's Hoover Institution, the Manhattan Institute, and the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. He has criticized the Trump administration's dispute with Anthropic, including Pentagon supply chain risk designations and export limits on Anthropic's Fable AI model, Politico reported.

The Strategic Futures team will handle "catastrophic risk, recursive self-improvement, labor market impact, and the relationship between the frontier labs, governments (particularly the U.S. Federal Government), and society," Ball wrote on Substack.

OpenAI has been hiring aggressively. The ChatGPT maker brought on 40 employees from Salesforce since January and plans to double its workforce from 4,500 to 8,000 by end of 2026, the Financial Times reported. OpenAI and Anthropic together have hired close to 100 people from Salesforce since the start of 2026, based on LinkedIn profiles.

Other recent hires include former Ironclad CEO Jason Boehmig to lead legal-industry products, former Salesforce AgentExchange CEO Brian Landsman as vice president of global partnerships, and Denise Dresser, who led Salesforce's Slack business, as chief revenue officer. Clint Gibler also joined as technical staff, working with Michael Aiello on cybersecurity products.

Ball's hire adds policy depth as OpenAI navigates federal AI regulation. The company's stock market analysis page tracks broader sector moves.

Ball's background at the Heritage Foundation and his criticism of Trump-era AI restrictions suggest the new unit will push for lighter regulation. His team sits between technical staff, legal, national security, and executive leadership, per his post. The unit's focus on "catastrophic risk" and "recursive self-improvement" signals OpenAI is preparing for advanced AI scenarios that could trigger government intervention.

OpenAI's hiring spree from Salesforce – 40 people in six months – reflects a broader talent war. The company's CRM stock page shows an Alpha Score of 38/100, labeled Mixed, in the Technology sector. The score reflects Salesforce's own challenges retaining staff amid OpenAI's recruiting push.

The Strategic Futures team will need to produce concrete policy proposals, not just internal governance. Ball's experience drafting the AI Action Plan gives him a playbook for translating lab priorities into legislative language. His criticism of export controls on Anthropic's models suggests he will argue against broad restrictions on frontier AI development.

OpenAI's workforce target of 8,000 by end of 2026 implies roughly 3,500 more hires in 18 months. The pace of hiring from Salesforce alone – roughly 6-7 per month – would need to accelerate or broaden to other companies to hit that number. Ball's hire is one piece of that expansion, the policy team's size and budget remain undisclosed.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's strategic partnership with CtrlS Datacenters in India was announced separately and is not directly related to OpenAI's moves.