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The federal government’s new CIO is a Palantir alum

Gregory Barbaccia will helm federal IT modernization efforts under the Trump admin.

An American flag where the white and red stripes are coiled in a ball around the flag

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3 min read

The federal government’s new chief information officer has a background in machine learning and hails from Peter Thiel’s Palantir.

Two people familiar with the staffing change told Nextgov/FCW that Gregory Barbaccia, a 10-year Palantir alum who until recently helmed security at machine learning-powered asset manager Theorem, arrived for work in the CIO role on Jan. 27. According to Nextgov/FCW, Barbaccia also has a background in US Army and federal intelligence work, but hasn’t worked for the government since 2009.

News of the appointment first appeared via Barbaccia’s LinkedIn page, according to the Federal News Network. The White House did not immediately return IT Brew’s request for comment.

The federal CIO is part of the Office of Management and Budget; unlike many senior government positions, the CIO does not require confirmation by the Senate. Barbaccia is the replacement for Clare Martorana, who announced last year that as a political appointee she would be leaving the government alongside the Biden administration.

“Continue to focus on cybersecurity—it is absolutely essential,” Martorana told MeriTalk in November 2024 with her potential successor in mind. “The threat landscape is extraordinary, and we have to keep focused. We can’t take our eye off the ball on cybersecurity.

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“You expect the technology that we have in government to work, and be simple, seamless, and secure, but the security part is really, really essential,” Martorana added. She cited last year’s discovery of the massive Salt Typhoon hacking operation, suspected to be linked to the Chinese government, which infiltrated numerous government agency systems via vulnerabilities in the US telco network.

Martorana also recommended continued modernization of federal technology. While Trump’s executive order creating the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) did so by renaming an existing office, the Digital Service, dedicated to government technology upgrades, that appears to contradict DOGE’s stated cost-cutting mission.

Barbaccia will likely work closely with DOGE as it seeks to streamline legacy technologies in use across the federal government, NextGov/FCW wrote.

As Cyberscoop reported, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report detailing hundreds of IT recommendations other agencies had failed to implement, leaving potential cost savings of hundreds of millions of dollars on the table. While that could be a blueprint for DOGE, many of those recommendations likely require extensive funding. GAO has deemed IT a “high-risk” area of spending, and the feds spend over $100 billion on IT annually, Cyberscoop wrote.

Top insights for IT pros

From cybersecurity and big data to cloud computing, IT Brew covers the latest trends shaping business tech in our 4x weekly newsletter, virtual events with industry experts, and digital guides.