White House nominates Palantir CISO Michael LoSapio to lead CISA after nearly two years without a confirmed director

Documented: On November 9, 2026, the White House sent the Senate the nomination of Michael LoSapio, chief information security officer at Palantir Technologies, to be director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Reuters, Nextgov/FCW, Cybersecurity Dive, and The Record reported the nomination the same day or the next. If confirmed, LoSapio would replace acting director Nick Andersen. CISA has lacked a Senate-confirmed leader since Jen Easterly left in January 2025—nearly 22 months. Trump’s earlier nominee, Sean Plankey, withdrew in April 2026 after a long wait.

Documented background of the nominee: Multiple outlets citing his LinkedIn profile say LoSapio has been Palantir’s CISO since September 2024 and previously led the company’s infrastructure and network security group from 2017. He worked at Palantir as a systems engineer earlier in the 2010s, left for a stretch that included database firm SingleStore, and returned. Cybersecurity Dive reported he does not appear to have prior government service and does not have a large general-management résumé. Supporters quoted by CyberScoop—an unnamed former Trump administration official and a cybersecurity executive who has worked with him—called his technical credentials and experience defending a heavily targeted company a fit for a technical agency. Those assessments are attributed opinion, not an official record of performance.

Documented institutional context: Reuters reported CISA staffing has fallen by about a third since Trump returned to office in 2025, and that the nomination follows large breaches disclosed in recent months at DHS, the FBI, and the Pentagon. Confirmation is uncertain. Democrats are expected to take the Senate in January 2027. Incoming Senate Homeland Security chair Maggie Hassan and prospective House Homeland Security chair Bennie Thompson told CyberScoop they have serious questions tied to Palantir’s role supplying tools used by ICE. Retiring Sen. Gary Peters said LoSapio must show independent judgment that puts national security above political pressure. House Homeland Security chair Andrew Garbarino, a Republican, welcomed a nominee and urged a prompt Senate review.

Documented overlap, not a proven capture: Palantir already sells data-integration and analytics software across DHS, including long-running ICE systems such as Investigative Case Management built on Gotham, with later work including ImmigrationOS. Cato Institute senior fellow Patrick Eddington told CyberScoop that CISA is itself a Palantir customer and that the nominee would come from a vendor whose software is already bought by the office he would run. Eddington argued that putting the company’s security chief over the agency that helps set the security bar for civilian federal systems risks making CISA “one vendor’s customer, regulator and alumni network all at once,” even if the nominee is well-intentioned. That is an analyst’s structural critique, not a finding of misconduct. CyberScoop reported a Palantir spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment; Reuters said LoSapio did not immediately respond either.

Claimed versus not shown: Democratic lawmakers claim Palantir tools have helped enable aggressive ICE surveillance practices they describe as lawless. Court filings and reporting, including from WIRED, have described protester and observer information stored in Palantir-supported ICE databases; ICE leadership has disputed maintaining a database of U.S. citizens protesting ICE. None of that reporting establishes what LoSapio personally built, approved, or would do at CISA. Speculated: that his confirmation would militarize domestic digital infrastructure or fuse private surveillance platforms with CISA’s defensive mission. What is on the record is narrower and still consequential—a private security chief from DHS’s dominant analytics vendor nominated to lead the civilian cyber agency during deep staff cuts, recent federal breaches, and an unresolved conflict-of-interest question the Senate has not yet examined in hearings.