President Donald Trump has nominated Palantir chief information security officer Michael LoSapio to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, putting a private-sector security executive in line to take over the federal government’s main civilian cyberdefense body.
The White House sent the nomination to the Senate on November 9. LoSapio has not been confirmed and is not yet CISA director; acting director Nick Andersen remains in charge while the Senate considers the nomination.
If confirmed, LoSapio would inherit an agency that has gone almost 22 months without a Senate-confirmed leader, lost roughly a third of its workforce, and begun rebuilding while narrowing its attention toward infrastructure whose disruption would cause the greatest harm. His first challenge would be larger than restoring headcount. He would have to show federal agencies, infrastructure operators and state officials what CISA can reliably deliver after two years of organizational churn.
Who is Michael LoSapio?
LoSapio has served as Palantir’s CISO since September 2024, according to Nextgov’s account of the nomination. Before taking the company-wide security role, he led Palantir’s infrastructure and network security group from 2017. He previously worked at the company as a systems engineer, spent time at database company SingleStore, and held systems-engineering roles at New York University and Seton Hall University.
That background is closely aligned with the technical side of CISA’s work: defending complex networks, coordinating incident response and helping organizations reduce exposure before an attack. It does not by itself answer the public-sector questions that come with the job. CISA’s director must coordinate across federal departments, state and local governments, critical-infrastructure owners, vendors and intelligence agencies, often without direct authority over the systems at risk.
LoSapio would also move from a company with extensive government business into an agency that works throughout the federal technology and security ecosystem. Palantir’s contracts and its work with the Department of Homeland Security have drawn scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers over privacy and surveillance. That does not establish a conflict by itself, but it makes disclosure, recusal and vendor-neutral procurement legitimate confirmation issues.
CISA is smaller and still rebuilding
CISA lost about 1,000 employees, roughly one-third of its workforce, between January 2025 and January 2026, according to Federal News Network. The reductions affected an agency responsible for defending civilian federal networks and supporting operators in sectors including energy, water, communications, health care and transportation.
The rebuild is underway, but it is incomplete. Andersen said in September that approximately 250 prospective employees had tentative offers and were waiting for security clearances and other onboarding steps. He expected the agency to welcome hundreds of employees, with an emphasis on operational and regional roles, Nextgov reported.
A hiring total alone will not show whether the lost capability has returned. The useful measures are more specific: how many incident responders, threat hunters, vulnerability analysts and regional advisers are available; how quickly CISA can deploy them; whether turnover is falling; and whether state and private-sector partners know whom to call.
The agency’s leadership gap compounds that problem. Jen Easterly left in January 2025. Trump’s previous nominee, Sean Plankey, withdrew in April 2026 after a confirmation process that had stalled for more than a year. LoSapio is therefore the administration’s second attempt to install a permanent director during Trump’s current term.
The agency is also narrowing its operating model
CISA released a strategy in October that calls for a yearlong review of its services and a sharper focus on infrastructure whose failure would have the greatest effect on public safety, the economy or national security. The approach is meant to concentrate scarce people and money where the consequences are highest, but it also raises practical questions about which sectors, regions and smaller organizations receive less support.
Election security is one visible example of the trust problem. After staffing and program reductions, state officials took on more responsibility for the 2026 midterms. CISA maintained that state and local governments, election offices and election vendors could still request no-cost vulnerability scanning and technical help, Axios reported. A new director would need to clarify whether that request-driven model is temporary or the agency’s durable posture.
The same issue applies beyond elections. CISA cannot place a federal team inside every hospital, water utility or local government. Its value comes from trusted relationships, useful warnings, coordinated response and services that smaller organizations cannot easily buy. Prioritization is unavoidable; leaving partners unsure about what remains available is not.
What the Senate needs to establish
LoSapio’s confirmation process is likely to focus on Palantir, but the most consequential questions are operational. Senators should ask for measurable commitments on staffing, service availability, incident-response capacity and regional coverage, not only a broad promise to protect critical infrastructure.
- Workforce: Which technical and regional roles are missing, how many of the pending hires have started, and what capability should be restored during his first six months?
- Mission: Which CISA services will be expanded, redesigned or ended under the October strategy, and how will affected partners be told?
- Independence: What financial interests, former-employer matters or Palantir-related decisions would require disclosure or recusal?
- Election support: What assistance will remain available to state and local officials outside an election year, and will CISA proactively identify risks or primarily wait for requests?
- Accountability: Which public metrics will show whether vulnerability management, incident response and infrastructure partnerships are improving?
Timing could make the nomination harder. The current Senate has a crowded end-of-year calendar, and the incoming Congress will have a Democratic majority. If the Senate does not act before the current Congress ends, the White House would generally have to submit the nomination again. That gives lawmakers an opportunity to examine both LoSapio’s record and the administration’s plans for an agency that has spent nearly two years operating without confirmed leadership.
The nomination gives CISA a possible path back to permanent management. Whether it produces a stronger agency will depend on decisions that are less ceremonial: who is hired, which capabilities survive the service review, how conflicts are handled and whether partners regain confidence that federal help will be there when a serious intrusion begins.
