# Revolving Door The movement of people between government and the private interests government regulates, funds, and buys from — carrying relationships, inside knowledge, and implicit IOUs in both directions. The revolving door is the influence industry's core personnel mechanism: what firms and companies purchase, when they hire a former official, is the network the public paid to build. ## The four doors 1. **Legislator → lobbyist.** Former members of Congress monetizing their floor relationships ([[Trent Lott]], [[John Breaux]], [[Pat Roberts]] — or, unregistered, [[Tom Daschle]] and the [[Shadow Lobbying]] route). 2. **Staffer → lobbyist.** The volume business: committee staff directors and chiefs of staff who wrote the language now billing to shape it ([[Susan Hirschmann]], [[Kai Anderson]], [[Paul Arcangeli]] — the entire staffing model of firms like [[Cornerstone Government Affairs]]). 3. **Regulator → regulated.** Executive-branch officials joining the industries they oversaw ([[Neil Kornze]], BLM → [[Cassidy & Associates]]; [[Jeff Shockey]], House committees → Boeing/RTX). 4. **Industry → appointee (the reverse door).** Private-sector figures entering the government that oversees their former employers and clients — the door that turns access into state power ([[Susie Wiles]] and [[Pam Bondi]], Ballard Partners → White House Chief of Staff and Attorney General; the Thiel-network placements below). The person-by-person ledger for the K Street doors lives at [[Revolving Door Roster]]; the legal speed bump that fails to slow any of this is the [[Cooling-Off Period]]. What follows on this page is the KB's deep-dive case study: the **defense-tech revolving door** — the fastest, most coordinated, and least-regulated variant in the history of defense procurement, where the same network of people cycles between building the weapons, funding the companies, placing the officials, and awarding the contracts. ## The Defense Tech Revolving Door vs. The Old Model ### Traditional Defense Revolving Door (Raytheon, Lockheed, Boeing) - **Speed**: General retires → 1-2 year cooling-off → joins defense company board - **Visibility**: Lobbying registrations, public board appointments, FEC disclosures - **Volume**: 672+ former officials as lobbyists/board/executives for top 20 defense firms (2022) - **Regulation**: Subject to rigorous lobbying disclosure requirements - **Pattern**: Career military → industry advisory → occasional return to government - **Scale (1995-2021)**: 315+ elite-rank military officers placed at Boeing, Raytheon, [[Lockheed Martin]]; 15% of Pentagon executive fellows went to top 5 contractors ### New Defense Tech Revolving Door (Palantir, Anduril, Scale AI) - **Speed**: Days to weeks (Kistruck: 9 days from UK MoD exit to Palantir hire) - **Visibility**: Startup equity, VC carry, forward-deployed engineers — less formal disclosure - **Pipeline**: VC network → startup employee → government operational role → back to startup - **Regulation**: Less scrutiny; FDE model creates influence not counted as lobbying - **Pattern**: Tech company → government decision-maker → back to tech (or both simultaneously) - **Key difference**: One investor ([[Peter Thiel]]) coordinates placements across multiple companies and government simultaneously ## The Personnel Map ### Thiel Network → Government (17+ identified, 2025) **Core Placements:** | Person | Origin | Government Role | Date | Status | |--------|--------|----------------|------|--------| | [[JD Vance]] | [[Mithril Capital]] (Thiel fund) | Vice President | Jan 2025 | Active | | [[David Sacks]] | PayPal (with Thiel) | AI & Crypto Czar | Jan 2025 | Stepped aside March 2026 | | [[Michael Kratsios]] | [[Thiel Capital]]; Scale AI | OSTP Director | March 2025 | Active | | Gregory Barbaccia | Palantir (10 years) | Federal CIO, OMB | Jan 2025 | Active | | Colin Carroll | Anduril VP | Chief of Staff, Deputy SecDef | Jan 2025 | Fired April 2025 (leak probe) | | [[Jim O'Neill]] | CEO, [[Thiel Foundation]] | Deputy Sec HHS; Acting CDC Director; nominated NSF Director | June 2025 | Active | | Kevin Harrington | Thiel Macro | Deputy Assistant to President; Commerce transition | 2017/2025 | Active | | Patrick Witt | Yale (Thiel network) | Chief of Staff, DOD Strategic Capital Office | Jan 2026 | Active | | Clark Minor | Palantir (13 years) | CIO, HHS | 2025 | Active | | Michael Obadal | Anduril Senior Director | Nominated Army Undersecretary | March 2025 | Confirmation pending | | Ryan Wunderly | Anduril (robotics engineer) | Treasury/DOGE | 2025 | Active | | [[Ken Howery]] | PayPal co-founder, Founders Fund | Ambassador to Denmark | 2025 | Active | ### Government → Defense Tech | Person | Government Role | Defense Tech Role | Gap | Conflict | |--------|----------------|-------------------|-----|----------| | [[Michael Kratsios]] | Acting Under Sec Defense R&E ($106B budget) | Managing Director, [[Scale AI]] | ~2 months | Scale AI won $250M DOD contract after he joined | | [[Trae Stephens]] | DOD transition team (Nov 2016) | Co-founded [[Anduril]] (2017) | ~6 months | Led DOD transition then founded company that gets DOD contracts | | Chip Burkhalter | 10 years CIA; State Dept | Head of Gov Relations, Palantir → VP Gov Relations, [[Shield AI]] | Unknown | Intelligence background → defense tech lobbying | | Mike Gallagher | Rep (R-WI), HASC member | Head of Defense, [[Palantir]] | 2024 | Armed Services Committee → company he oversaw | ### DOGE ← Palantir Recruitment Pipeline The DOGE-Palantir recruiting pipeline is documented and systematic: - **Anthony Jancso** (former Palantir) recruited to DOGE by Steve Davis in December 2024 - Jancso posted recruitment messages in the **Palantir alumni Slack group** (2,000+ members) seeking DOGE staff - Leading **AccelerateX** project: partnership with Palantir to deploy AI agents across federal agencies - AccelerateX proposal would affect **70,000+ federal employees** - Salary range: $120,000–$195,000 - CIO positions at OMB, OPM, and Department of Energy all filled by Palantir/SpaceX personnel ### UK Ministry of Defence → Palantir (4 officials in 2025 alone) The UK revolving door provides a comparative case study: | Person | MoD Role | Palantir Role | Gap | Contract Impact | |--------|----------|---------------|-----|----------------| | Barnaby Kistruck | Director, Industrial Strategy | Senior Counsellor | **9 days** | Wrote Strategic Defence Review recommending AI expansion; 3 months later Palantir won £240M contract without tender | | Leo Docherty | Minister of State, [[Armed Forces Hub]] | Adviser ("AI trends and geopolitical risk") | ~6 months | Oversaw digital services for armed forces before losing seat | | Laurence Lee | Second Permanent Secretary | Adviser to CEO on defence/national security | Unknown | Senior MoD official → direct Palantir advisory | | Damian Parmenter | Director General, AUKUS | International markets focus | ~1 month | AUKUS directorship → defense tech company | ## The Forward-Deployed Engineer Model as Government Capture [[Palantir]]'s most powerful revolving door mechanism isn't personnel — it's the **Forward-Deployed Software Engineer (FDSE)** model: ### How It Works 1. Palantir engineers embed directly inside government agencies — not as consultants, but as builders 2. They write code, untangle data pipelines, and adapt workflows on Palantir's own platform 3. At peak (~2016), Palantir had more FDSEs than traditional software engineers 4. This creates deep organizational entanglement and switching costs ### Why It's Different from Lobbying - FDSEs are not registered lobbyists - Their influence operates through technical dependency, not political persuasion - Government agencies become structurally dependent on Palantir's platform - A former federal agency official: *"The level of capture was so evident"* - A former Palantir content strategist: described it as *"helping a company create a monopoly over artificial intelligence decision-making by targeting federal government"* ### 2025 Expansion - Forward-deployed engineer job postings surged **800%** (Jan–Sept 2025) - FDE jobs exploded **1,165% year-over-year** (Jan–Oct 2025 vs 2024) - Applied to secure AI deployments, air-gapped systems, FedRAMP compliance ## The Thiel Pipeline Pattern The documented pattern operates in five stages: 1. **Identification**: Thiel identifies talented individuals (Vance at Yale, Kratsios at Thiel Capital, O'Neill at Thiel Foundation) 2. **Investment**: Founders Fund invests in defense tech startups (Palantir, Anduril, Shield AI, [[SpaceX]]) 3. **Placement**: Thiel network members placed in government roles (transition team → appointments → SGE positions) 4. **Contract**: Government officials award contracts to Thiel-backed companies ($10B Palantir Army deal, $20B Anduril Army deal, $1.3B Maven) 5. **Return**: Officials cycle back to defense tech companies (Kratsios DOD → Scale AI → OSTP) This creates a **closed loop** where the same network simultaneously: - Funds the companies (Founders Fund) - Places the officials (transition teams) - Awards the contracts (DOD, DHS, IRS) - Profits from the outcomes (stock appreciation, VC returns) - Shapes the regulatory environment (Sacks as AI Czar, Kratsios as OSTP Director) ## Lobbying Spend Escalation Palantir's lobbying spend tracks the revolving door's growth: - **2016**: ~$1 million - **2024**: $5.8 million - Palantir has extensively hired from the White House, DOD, CIA, and Congress to build a "sprawling influence network" - Many D.C. hires are "China hawks" whose messaging helps argue the Pentagon needs more AI to counter Chinese military threats ## The Ethics Gap ### Legal Framework - 18 U.S.C. § 207: 1-year cooling-off for certain DOD positions - Government contractors prohibited from compensating DOD employees for 1 year post-separation - Acquisition officials cannot be employed by contractors if they worked on contracts >$10M - Penalties (on paper): Up to 5 years imprisonment, criminal/civil fines, debarment ### Reality - **No Trump administration official has faced penalties** for revolving door conflicts - Ethics waivers issued as blankets rather than case-by-case reviews - Cooling-off periods exist on paper but enforcement is minimal - The [[Special Government Employee]] designation allows people like Sacks and Musk to maintain private financial interests while shaping policy - Forward-deployed engineers create regulatory capture without triggering any disclosure requirements ## See Also - [[Revolving Door Roster]] — the person-by-person K Street ledger - [[Lobbying Hub]] · [[Cooling-Off Period]] · [[Shadow Lobbying]] · [[Influence Peddling]] - [[Defense Tech Conflicts of Interest]] - [[PayPal Mafia to Pentagon Pipeline]] - [[DOGE-Palantir Nexus]] - [[Military-Industrial Complex 2.0]] - [[Palantir]] - [[Anduril]] - [[Founders Fund]] - [[Peter Thiel]] - [[Michael Kratsios]] - [[Steve Feinberg]] - [[Airship AI]] — David Aguilar (former CBP Acting Commissioner → advisory board)