CISA Gets a Director Nominee After Months Without One: Palantir Security Executive Michael LoSapio, With a Senate Vote in Doubt
President Trump has nominated Palantir’s Michael LoSapio to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has had no Senate-confirmed director this term and has lost about a third of its staff. Whether the Senate acts before the session ends is unclear.
For most of this year, the federal agency that warns American businesses about actively exploited software flaws has been run by an acting director. On Monday, the White House put forward a name to change that.
The account below is based on The Record’s reporting on the nomination.
A long vacancy at the top
President Donald Trump has nominated Michael LoSapio to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Homeland Security Department’s civilian cyber defense arm. The agency has had no Senate-confirmed leader since the president returned to office. An earlier nominee, Sean Plankey, withdrew this year after months waiting on Capitol Hill, and Nick Andersen has served as acting director since February.
LoSapio comes from Palantir, the software and AI company, which he joined in 2017. According to his LinkedIn profile, as cited by The Record, he led its infrastructure and network security group before becoming CIO in late 2024; The Record’s report also describes him as the company’s chief information security officer.
An agency that has been shrinking
The nomination arrives after a difficult stretch for CISA. It has lost more than 1,000 people, about a third of its workforce, and seen its budget cut by billions of dollars during the second Trump administration. That followed years of Republican criticism that its work against election disinformation targeted conservative voices.
The agency kept a low profile before last week’s midterm elections. A spokesperson said it still offered voluntary, no-cost services such as vulnerability scanning ahead of Election Day and switched on its Incident Coordination Group as a hub for sharing threat information.
A crowded calendar in the Senate
Whether senators take up the nomination this year is uncertain. The lame-duck session is already loaded with a must-pass government funding measure and the annual defense policy bill. If Congress adjourns next month without a vote, the president would have to send the nomination again next year, when it would go before an incoming Democratic majority. A spokesperson for Sen. Rand Paul, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, did not immediately respond to The Record.
Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the committee’s top Democrat, who retires in January, said CISA needs a steady leader committed to rebuilding its capabilities and supporting its workforce, and that LoSapio must show the independent judgment to put national security above political pressure. In the House, Rep. Bennie Thompson, expected to lead the Homeland Security Committee again, has signaled thorough oversight of every DHS component, including CISA. The committee’s current chair, Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York, praised Andersen’s leadership and said he looks forward to reviewing LoSapio’s qualifications, urging the Senate to move quickly.
Timing, and questions about fit
Andersen’s temporary term ran out on September 24 under the federal limit on acting officials, though he stayed in the job through an administrative step. A new nomination restarts that clock. A former government cybersecurity official told The Record that the timing, right at the start of the lame-duck session and exactly when Andersen needed it, made the pick hard to read, and questioned whether the administration would push for confirmation and stand by LoSapio into 2027.
Some experts said LoSapio’s Palantir experience offers a useful view as AI becomes part of national security and daily cyber operations, but not enough on its own to run CISA. Chris Cochran, vice president of AI security at the SANS Institute, said securing a company that builds AI technology is very different from defending against AI-driven threats, and that he will watch whether LoSapio can bridge that gap.
What this means for your company
Leadership changes in Washington do not change your exposure. CISA’s alerts, its list of known exploited vulnerabilities and its free services remain some of the most useful public resources for smaller organizations, but a thinner federal agency means less outside help to count on. Subscribe to official advisories, check them against your own systems on a set schedule, and make sure you have your own plan, people and partners for patching and incident response rather than waiting for a government warning.
Would your business know what to do if the next major alert lands on a Friday afternoon? Reach out to Layer 7 Data Solutions to discuss how we’ve helped companies similar to yours.
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