Ex-NSA Chief Paul Nakasone Has a Warning for the Tech World

The Trump administration's radical changes to United States fiscal policy, foreign relations, and global strategy—combined with mass firings across the federal government—have created uncertainty around US cybersecurity priorities that was on display this week at two of the country's most prominent digital security conferences in Las Vegas. “We are not retreating, we're advancing in a new direction,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency chief information officer Robert Costello said on Thursday during a critical infrastructure defense panel at Black Hat.

As in other parts of the federal government, the Trump administration has been combing intelligence and cybersecurity agencies to remove officials seen as disloyal to its agenda. Alongside these shifts, the White House has also been hostile to former US cybersecurity officials. In April, for example, Trump specifically directed all departments and agencies to revoke the security clearance of former CISA director Chris Krebs. And last week, following criticism from far-right activist Laura Loomer, the secretary of the Army rescinded an academic appointment that former CISA director Jen Easterly had been scheduled to fill at West Point. Amid all of this, former US National Security Agency and Cyber Command chief Paul Nakasone spoke with Defcon founder Jeff Moss in an onstage discussion on Friday, focusing on AI, cybercrime, and the importance of partnerships in digital defense.

“I think we've entered a space now in the world where technology has become political and basically every one of us is conflicted,” Moss said at the beginning of the discussion. Nakasone, who is on the board of OpenAI, agreed, citing Trump's January launch of the “Stargate” AI infrastructure initiative flanked by Oracle's Larry Ellison, SoftBank's Masayoshi Son, and OpenAI's Sam Altman. “And then two days later, just by chance, [the Chinese generative AI platform] DeepSeek came out,” Nakasone deadpanned. “Amazing.”

Nakasone also reflected on demographic differences between the US federal government and the tech sector.

“When I was the director of NSA and commander of US Cyber Command, every single quarter I would go to the Bay or I'd go to Texas or Boston or other places to see technology,” he said. “And every place that I went to, I was twice the age of the people that talked to me. And then when I came back to DC and I sat at the table, I was one of the younger people there. OK, that's a problem. That's a problem for our nation.”

Throughout the discussion, Nakasone largely geared his remarks toward efforts to counter traditional US rivals and adversaries, including China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, as well as specific digital threats.

“Why aren't we thinking differently about ransomware, which I think right now is among the great scourges that we have in our country,” he said. “We are not making progress against ransomware.”

At times, though, Moss attempted to steer the conversation toward geopolitical changes and conflicts around the world that are fueling uncertainty and fear.

“How do you be neutral in this environment? Can you be neutral? Or is the world's environment since last year, Ukraine, Israel, Russia, Iran, just take your pick, America—how does anybody remain neutral?" Moss asked at the beginning of the conversation. Later he added, “I think because I'm so stressed out by the chaos of the situation, I'm trying to feel how do I get control?”

Referencing these remarks and comments Moss had made about turning to open source software platforms as a community-building alternative to multinational tech companies, Nakasone hinted at Moss’ notion that the world is entering a precarious state of flux.

“This is going to be an interesting storyline that we play out through ’25 and ’26. When we come back [to Defcon] next year to have this discussion, will we still be able to have this sense of, oh, we're truly neutral? I sense not. I think it's going to be very, very difficult.”