Greg Hogan is out as the chief information officer of the Office of Personnel Management after roughly seven-and-a-half months on the job. Hogan was installed at the human capital agency on the first day of President Donald Trump’s second administration, replacing Melvin Brown II after roughly a week on the job. According to an OPM spokeswoman, Hogan departed the agency earlier this week and Perryn Ashmore, who is currently assistant director of enterprise learning at the agency, is currently serving as CIO in an acting capacity. Although not much was shared by the agency about Hogan’s background, a legal filing in a challenge brought by current and former federal employees over Department of Government Efficiency access to OPM data provided some details. According to that document, Hogan was the vice president of infrastructure at comma.ai — a self-driving car software company — before joining the Trump administration. He also told the court he had 20 years of experience in private sector IT and a computer engineering degree.

Stephen Ehikian, the deputy administrator of the General Services Administration, has left the agency to take over as chief executive officer at the enterprise AI application software company C3 AI. Ehikian told GSA staff Tuesday in an email obtained by FedScoop that he would “transition out” of the agency’s deputy administrator role, but remain an adviser to the leadership team during the transition process. On Wednesday, C3 AI announced Ehikian’s hiring as CEO. He said in a statement he is “honored” to join the company “at such a pivotal time in the AI era.” He served as the GSA’s acting head for the first half of this year until July, when President Donald Trump tapped State Department leader Michael Rigas for the role and Ehikian moved into the deputy spot. “I want to thank Stephen Ehikian for his service and wish him well,” Rigas said in a statement shared by GSA. Edward Forst, a longtime financial services executive, was nominated by Trump in July to serve as the next administrator of the GSA. A nomination hearing date has not been scheduled, according to congressional records.

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OpenAI has cleared another critical hurdle to selling its ChatGPT tool directly to the federal government. As of Tuesday, ChatGPT is listed as “in process” on the FedRAMP Marketplace, an online repository that tracks where companies stand in the FedRAMP security review process. While federal agencies can issue their own approvals to use technology platforms, FedRAMP is the government’s primary security review program and is designed to clear widespread cloud-based technologies for use across federal agencies. OpenAI received prioritized authorization through 20x, a person familiar with the matter told FedScoop. It’s the first company to receive this prioritization, which, in effect, eliminates the need for companies to find federal agencies to sponsor them for review. At one point, OpenAI had engaged USAID, its first enterprise customer, about helping them with the process, FedScoop previously reported, but the agency was mostly shuttered in the early days of the second Trump administration. The General Services Administration created the prioritized review for AI cloud services just last month.

Microsoft will offer a host of its cloud services at a discounted price to the federal government, the General Services Administration announced Tuesday, including its artificial intelligence assistant Copilot at no cost to some agencies. The OneGov deal makes Microsoft the latest technology firm to leverage steep discounts on its cloud products to expand adoption within the federal government. It comes on the heels of GSA’s deals with industry competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, which are separately offering their AI models to the government for a dollar or less. Under the new agreement, Microsoft will offer its subscription service, Microsoft 365, Azure Cloud Services, and Dynamics 365 — the company’s suite of business management apps — for a “discounted price” for up to 36 months.

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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy plans to sunset several outdated agency IT systems and consolidate technology management under a new program called 1DoT, according to a memo sent earlier this week. 1DoT, Duffy wrote, is meant to “unify” the department, whose components include the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The 1DoT initiative is supposed to eliminate redundancies and focus on “efficiency, accountability, and operational excellence,” Duffy explained in the email, which was viewed by FedScoop. The memo lays into myriad problems with the Transportation Department’s $3.5 billion annual IT portfolio, calling its systems “outdated, expensive, and unsecure.” Duffy said: “This complicated web of technology is more than just a nuisance. Less efficiency means longer wait times for project completion, grants signed, or safety reviews conducted.

Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for researching and engineering and the Pentagon’s CTO, has taken on the role of acting director of the Silicon Valley-headquartered Defense Innovation Unit in the wake of Doug Beck’s resignation, DefenseScoop has learned. Beck unexpectedly resigned on Monday. The Defense Department has not provided an explanation for his sudden resignation. However, a defense official confirmed that Michael will fill the role and Michael Dodd has been appointed as the acting deputy director, saying they are “laser-focused on driving innovation and enhancing the Department’s ability to deliver groundbreaking commercial technologies to empower the American warfighter.” Dodd has been a principal at DIU since December 2022. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump nominated him to be assistant secretary of defense for critical technologies, which falls under the Pentagon’s R&E directorate.

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Department of Government Efficiency members stored a copy of a massive Social Security Administration database in a “vulnerable” custom cloud environment, putting more than 300 million people’s personal information at risk, the agency’s chief data officer said in a new whistleblower complaint. The complaint, filed with Congress on Tuesday, revealed new concerns from CDO Charles Borges about “serious data security lapses” allegedly involving DOGE officials working at the SSA. According to the complaint, those officials, under the direction of SSA Chief Information Officer Aram Moghaddassi, granted themselves permission to copy Americans’ Social Security information onto a cloud server with no verified oversight, violating agency protocols. The Government Accountability Project wrote on behalf of Borges in the complaint that the “vulnerable cloud environment is effectively a live copy of the entire country’s Social Security information from the Numerical Identification System (NUMIDENT) database, that apparently lacks any security oversight from SSA or tracking to determine who is accessing or has accessed the copy of this data.” The NUMIDENT data includes all the information applicants use for a Social Security card, including their name, phone number, address, place and date of birth, parents’ names and Social Security numbers along with other personal information. The complaint warned: “Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost.”

Adele Merritt is out as the top IT official at the National Institutes of Health after roughly eight months in the role, again changing up the leadership in the position. Merritt was first announced as the new chief information officer in December after most recently serving as CIO of the intelligence community. At the time she took on the position, the role hadn’t had a permanent official in roughly two years. Merritt’s departure comes as the Trump administration has sought to reduce the federal workforce and reshape federal agencies, including HHS. In March, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced plans to cut 10,000 workers from the agency on top of 10,000 who had already left via incentivized resignation and retirement offers from the administration. A recent ProPublica analysis of HHS’s public directory found that the health agency has lost roughly 18% of its workforce since January.

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The Trump White House has tapped Tesla board member and Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia to take the lead on its initiative to redesign the federal government’s digital footprint. Gebbia announced that he was appointed as chief design officer in a Saturday post to X, formerly known as Twitter. That role was established by President Donald Trump via executive order last week along with a new National Design Studio and an initiative to improve digital and physical spaces called “America By Design.” Gebbia said in his X post that his directive “is to update today’s government services to be as satisfying to use as the Apple Store: beautifully designed, great user experience, run on modern software.” Gebbia thanked Trump for supporting the new initiative and asked people interested in joining the studio to reach out with a link to their work. Prior to his appointment as the design chief, Gebbia also worked with DOGE to modernize the Office of Personnel Management’s mostly paper-based retirement processing.

Sen. Ron Wyden on Monday urged Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to seek an independent review of federal court cybersecurity following the latest major hack, accusing the judiciary of “incompetence” and “covering up” its “negligence” over digital defenses. Wyden, D-Ore., wrote his letter in response to news this month that hackers had reportedly breached and stolen sealed case data from federal district courts dating back to at least July, exploiting vulnerabilities left unfixed for five years. Alleged Russian hackers were behind both the attack and another past major intrusion, and may have lurked in the systems for years. Wyden wrote in his letter: “The courts have been entrusted with some of our nation’s most confidential and sensitive information, including national security documents that could reveal sources and methods to our adversaries, and sealed criminal charging and investigative documents that could enable suspects to flee from justice or target witnesses. Yet, you continue to refuse to require the federal courts to meet mandatory cybersecurity requirements and allow them to routinely ignore basic cybersecurity best practices.” That, Wyden said, means someone from the outside must conduct a review, naming the National Academy of Sciences as the organization Roberts should choose.

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The top lawmakers on a key House cybersecurity panel are hoping to remove a barrier to entry for cyber jobs in the federal government. Introduced last week, the Cybersecurity Hiring Modernization Act from Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, would prioritize skills-based hiring over educational requirements for cyber jobs at federal agencies. Mace and Brown — the chair and ranking member of the House Oversight Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Subcommittee, respectively — said the legislation would ensure the federal government has access to a “broader pool of qualified applicants” as the country faces “urgent cybersecurity challenges.” Mace said in a press release Thursday: “As cyber threats against our government continue to grow, we need to make sure our federal agencies hire the most qualified candidates, not just those with traditional degrees. This bill cuts red tape, opens doors to skilled Americans without a four-year diploma but with the expertise to get the job done, and strengthens our nation’s cybersecurity workforce.” Brown said in a statement that expanding the cyber workforce is “imperative” to “meet our nation’s growing need for safe and secure systems.” The bill aims to “remove outdated hiring policies, expand workforce opportunities to a wider pool of talented applicants, and help agencies hire the staff that they need,” she added. The bill calls on the Office of Personnel Management to annually publish any education-related changes that are made to minimum qualification requirements for federal cyber roles. OPM would also be charged with aggregating data on educational backgrounds of new hires for those cyber positions.

Texas-based defense startup Saronic Technologies will produce multiple batches of autonomous maritime drones for the U.S. Navy by mid-2031 under an other transaction agreement (OTA) worth more than $392 million, according to officials and public contracting documents viewed by DefenseScoop. Details are sparse regarding the specific features, types and quantities of unmanned vessels Saronic will deliver — but they’ll likely mark a major component of the Navy’s AI-enabled, hybrid fleet that’s being designed to counter security threats in and around the Pacific. OTA contract vehicles offer Defense Department buyers more flexibility and speed than traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation-based acquisitions. They’re a key element in the Navy’s broader plan to modernize and incentivize accelerated technology adoption to prepare for future fights. According to records posted on the Federal Procurement Data System, Naval Sea Systems Command and Saronic Technologies formalized this $392 million OTA — which has a completion date of May 30, 2031 — on May 16. Two months later, in July, NAVSEA made an award to Saronic worth nearly $197 million under the agreement, or about half of the total award ceiling. It’s unclear if more awards have been made to date.

President Donald Trump called for improvements to federal government websites in a Thursday executive order, arguing the U.S. government “has lagged behind in usability and aesthetics.” The new directive is focused on both digital and physical spaces and launches an initiative it calls “America by Design” to achieve the administration’s goals. That effort will be led by a new National Design Studio and chief design officer that will coordinate agency actions. Federal agencies, for their part, will be required to “produce initial results” by July 4, 2026. The executive order states that “the National Design Studio will advise agencies on how to reduce duplicative design costs, use standardized design to enhance the public’s trust in high-impact service providers, and dramatically improve the quality of experiences offered to the American public.”Specifically, agencies are required to prioritize improving websites and physical spaces “that have a major impact on Americans’ everyday lives.” The administrator of the General Services Administration is also instructed to consult with the new design official to update the U.S. Web Design System consistent with the order. The U.S. Web Design System is a community to help agencies with design and maintenance of their digital presence that was initially established by 18F, which the Trump administration eliminated, and the U.S. Digital Service, which was turned into the DOGE.

Google will make its Gemini AI models and tools available to the federal government for less than 50 cents through a new General Services Administration deal, making the company the latest to offer its technology to agencies at just a marginal cost. Google, which announced the launch of “Gemini for Government” on Thursday, said the tool is a “complete AI platform” that will include high-profile Gemini models. The new government-focused product suite comes as other AI companies — including xAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI — begin to offer similar public sector versions of their enterprise AI products. Unlike those other companies, though, Google already has an extensive federal government cloud business. For now, the government Gemini product will be limited to Google’s cloud programs. The platform will include access to NotebookLM AI, a research and note taking tool, and AI agents for deep research and idea generation. The platform will cost 47 cents per agency for one year and the offer will stand through 2026, according to the GSA.

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As part of its ongoing work with the National Nuclear Security Administration, Anthropic is now working on a new tool designed to help detect when new AI systems output troubling discussions of nuclear weapons. Artificial intelligence systems have the potential to uncover all sorts of new chemical compounds. While many of those discoveries might be promising, and yield, for example, formulas to help propel nuclear energy sources, they might also risk outputting information that could make it easier to design a nuclear weapon. In a new blog post, the company said that along with the NNSA and the Energy Department’s national laboratories, it’s developed a classifier that’s able to automatically determine whether nuclear conversation with an AI chatbot is benign or concerning, with 96% accuracy. The system was developed based on an NNSA-curated list of nuclear risk indicators.

Individuals will soon be able to verify their identities using their passports on the General Services Administration’s Login.gov platform, marking the agency’s latest efforts to boost user friendliness on the single-sign-on service. According to a GSA announcement published Wednesday, individuals will soon be able to submit a picture of their passport’s biographical page during Login.gov’s identity proofing process. Once Login.gov receives a passport photo, it will then check the photo against passport records managed by the State Department, the GSA said, noting State manages a “privacy-preserving” API for this. Login.gov gives the public the option to log into multiple federal, state and local government websites using just one account once a user’s identity is verified. Under its current format, users looking to create a Login.gov account are often required to take a picture of themselves and submit that with a photo of their state-issued ID or driver’s license for comparison. The move to accept passports is part of a new partnership between GSA’s Technology Transformation Services and the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, with the GSA describing it as a “first-of-its-kind partnership between federal agencies to use authoritative government records as a source for identity verification.”

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The China-based artificial intelligence model DeepSeek isn’t available for widespread use at the Department of Energy, but approval of some elements may be possible following a study by two of its national labs, an agency IT official said Tuesday. DeepSeek’s launch has prompted congressional proposals to rein in its use in government and proactive bans by several federal agencies, including DOE. But during a panel at a FedScoop-produced Salesforce event, Bridget Carper — the agency’s deputy CIO for architecture, engineering, technology and innovation — said the model has still been studied by two DOE national labs. Carper said the agency allowed two of its labs — which she didn’t identify — to look at the system “because there’s value in testing the open models. There’s value in understanding the performance. How does it actually compare?” The separate labs looked at the model to see if they could do comparisons with alternatives they had, Carper said. Those studies also took place with guardrails. They were controlled, sanctioned and fully documented, she said. And ultimately, they found some potential benefits.

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering is taking over the “authority, direction, and control” of the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office, according to new guidance issued last Thursday by Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg that presents an accelerated plan to disrupt and transform how the emerging technology is adopted across the Defense Department and military. Feinberg wrote in a memorandum to Pentagon leadership, combatant commanders, and defense agency and DOD field activity directors that “by aligning the CDAO under the USD(R&E), we create a powerful innovation engine that can deliver Al superiority from laboratory to battlefield.” The CDAO had previously been a direct report to the deputy SecDef. DefenseScoop obtained a copy of the directive from a source who requested anonymity to share it last Friday, after others alerted the publication of its creation. A defense official subsequently acknowledged the memo’s existence in an email — noting that the CDAO will continue to execute all current statutory responsibilities without interruption during this transition. The defense official said the realignment is “the next step in making a uniform, AI-first push for the [DOD],” adding that it won’t create additional review layers or bureaucratic processes.

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In a sweeping announcement about a forthcoming executive order, President Donald Trump argued Monday that states are ultimately subservient to the White House when it comes to setting election policy. Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform that states are “merely an agent for the federal government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the federal government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.” Trump also claimed the executive order would end mail-in voting, falsely claiming that other countries stopped the practice due to fraud, as well as “very expensive and SERIOUSLY CONTROVERSIAL voting machines.” It’s not clear which voting machines Trump was referencing. The president’s allies and friendly media outlets like Fox News and NewsMax were successfully sued by Smartmatic and Dominion for billions of dollars after the 2020 election for falsely claiming that their voting machines were rigged to elect Democratic President Joe Biden. Either way, Trump has lost dozens of lawsuits attempting to prove fraud, and reportedly nearly signed an executive order at the end of his last term ordering the Department of Defense to seize voting machines, purportedly to examine them for fraud. A previous executive order from Trump this year, purporting to compel the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission to alter voter registration request forms to include a proof of citizenship section and deny forms to states or voters who don’t provide the information, was struck down by a judge as unconstitutional in April. The judge in the ruling remarked that “no statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process” on regulating elections via executive order.

A federal watchdog is urging the Office of Management and Budget to prioritize the governmentwide adoption of a federal IT spending framework, or end the efforts, after finding the multi-year initiative has stalled. In a report made public Monday, the Government Accountability Office recommended that the OMB director direct the federal chief information officer to either terminate the agency’s push for governmentwide adoption of the Technology Business Management framework or deem it an administration priority. Should it be made a priority, the GAO also suggested OMB quickly implement the watchdog’s previous recommendations and take “immediate action” to integrate the framework across government fully.

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