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Blog Post | August 5, 2026

AI Villains and the Trump Administration: Dean Ball

Artificial IntelligenceDean BallExecutive BranchRevolving DoorTechTrump Watch
AI Villains and the Trump Administration: Dean Ball

Name: Dean Ball

Title: Head of Strategic Futures, OpenAI 

Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Foundation for American Innovation

Industry Affiliation

  • Head of Strategic Futures at OpenAI
    • In July 2026, Ball stepped into the role of Head of Strategic Futures at OpenAI, the company that built the AI chatbot, ChatGPT. According to Hyperdimensional, an AI-focused Substack newsletter authored by Ball, his position is part of “a new team created to shape frontier AI policy within the company.” The team reports to Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon and plans to “cover both public-facing policy (for example, proposals for legislation) and internal governance within the lab[.]”  
  • Ball has held various AI policy-related positions, both past and present, in the think tank and academic world.
    • Ball is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation (FAI), a right-wing think tank that participated in the AI working group of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the second Trump administration.
      • FAI is tied to tech billionaires Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. The group has supported the “abundance agenda,” a neoliberal “rallying cry for a whole array of deregulatory causes” for the purposes of, among other things, “fostering more technological innovation.” 
    • Ball is a Visiting Fellow for Technology and the Human Person at the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank and architect of Project 2025, where he helps craft AI policy.
    • Ball is a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, where he co-teaches a Colloquium on Frontier AI Governance. 
    • Ball was a fellow for AI and Emerging Technology at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a right-wing think tank founded by Trump allies Linda McMahon, Brooke Rollins, and Larry Kudlow. He co-authored AFPI’s “America First AI Agenda,” which envisions the U.S. as the world’s leader in AI and advocates for the federal government to widely adopt AI, promote AI infrastructure projects, and accelerate the use of AI applications in education and healthcare. 
    • Ball was a policy fellow at and senior advisor to Fathom, a nonprofit partnered with FAI that advocates for private AI governance.  
    • Ball was a research fellow in the Artificial Intelligence & Progress Project at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, where his work focused on AI and governance. 
  • Ball co-hosts “AI Summer,” a podcast featuring interviews with academics, researchers, founders, and content creators about AI tech and policy.

Revolver/Government Experience

  • From April to August 2025, Ball served as Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. During this time, he was also a Strategic Advisor for AI at the National Science Foundation as well as Co-Chair of the National AI Research Resource Pilot Steering Committee, the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Machine Learning and AI, and the General Services Administration’s AI Community of Practice. 
  • Ball interned at the U.S. Department of Commerce from June 2012 to January 2013. Prior to that, he interned for six months at the U.S. Senate.

Trump Admin Ties

  • During his stint at the White House, Ball was the primary author of “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan.” Released by the White House on July 23, 2025, the AI Action Plan calls for federal deregulation; pushes against state AI laws; urges the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to drop references to climate change and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; advocates for accelerated AI adoption across the federal government; and promotes fast-tracking AI data center buildout.
    • Also, Ball was the primary architect of Trump’s Executive Order 14318 titled “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure” and Executive Order 14320 titled “Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack.” Executive Order 14318 directs federal agencies to expedite environmental permitting for AI data centers, and Executive Order 14320 encourages worldwide exportation of U.S.-made AI applications in order to advance the U.S.’ global dominance of the AI space.  
    • While in the Trump administration, Ball worked alongside Michael Kratsios, who heads the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and co-chairs the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Kratsios is the person responsible for setting Ball up with his government role. Ball also worked with David Sacks, Trump’s former AI and crypto czar and the other co-chair of PCAST, and Sriram Krishnan, Trump’s former Senior Policy Advisor for AI and a former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that is a major backer of the AI buildout. 
  • Ball is not the only FAI ally to have served in the second Trump administration. Michael Kratsios is a former FAI board member.
    • Alexei Bulazel, a former non-resident senior fellow at FAI, serves as Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Cyber at the White House National Security Council.
    • Jon Askonas, another former FAI senior fellow, serves as a member of the Policy Planning Staff of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.     
    • Sophia Brown-Heidenreich, former director of the Artificial Intelligence Policy team at FAI, is a senior advisor at NIST’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation. 
    • Seth Newkirk, a former FAI policy hacker fellow, is a senior advisor for the Bureau of Emerging Threats at the State Department. Previously, he served as an Associate Director for Presidential Personnel to Trump’s White House.

Government Affairs

  • In 2026, FAI’s recently launched 501(c)(4) arm, FAI Action Inc., hired Mission Strategies LLC (Energy) to lobby on its behalf on energy issues. During the second quarter of 2026, FAI Action Inc. paid Mission Strategies $40,000 to lobby Congress on its behalf on permitting reform and federal support restrictions.

State Level Action

  • OpenAI lobbies against robust AI regulations at the state level in states like California, New York, Illinois, and Texas. For example, in 2024, OpenAI paid DeVeau Burr Group LLC $107,750 to lobby on its behalf on AI-related legislation, including SB 1047 (the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act), which would have required large developers of AI models to conduct safety tests and made them liable for harms caused by their models. California Governor Newsom vetoed SB 1047 after heavy opposition from OpenAI and others in the tech industry. Like OpenAI, Ball was vehemently opposed to SB 1047.

Image: Trump announces his AI Action Plan, primarily drafted by Dean Ball, at a White House AI Summit in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 2025. Photo by The White House, United States Government Work.

For more check out AI Villains and The Trump Administration

Artificial IntelligenceDean BallExecutive BranchRevolving DoorTechTrump Watch
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