Hardware executive Caitlin Kalinowski announced today that she is stepping down from leading OpenAI’s robotics team in response to OpenAI’s controversial agreement with the Department of Defense.
“This was not an easy decision,” Kalinowski said in a social media post. “AI plays an important role in national security, but surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight or lethal autonomy without human permission deserves full consideration.”
Kalinowski, who previously led the augmented reality glasses construction team at Meta, joined OpenAI in November 2024. In today’s announcement, she emphasized that this decision was about “principles, not people” and said she has “deep respect” for CEO Sam Altman and the OpenAI team.
In a follow-up post about X, Kalinowski added, “To be clear, my issue is that the announcement was rushed without defined guardrails. This is first and foremost a governance concern. These are too important to rush into a deal or announcement.”
An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that Kalinowski has left the company.
“We believe our agreement with the Department of Defense creates a viable pathway for the responsible use of AI for national security purposes, while clearing the red lines for domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons,” the company said in a statement. “We recognize that people have strong opinions on these issues and will continue to engage in discussions with our employees, governments, civil society and communities around the world.”
OpenAI’s agreement with the Pentagon was announced just over a week ago after talks between the Pentagon and Anthropic broke down as the AI companies sought to negotiate safeguards to prevent their technology from being used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. The Department of Defense subsequently designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk. (Anthropic said it would challenge the designation in court. In the meantime, Microsoft, Google and Amazon said they would continue to make Anthropic’s Claude available to non-defense customers.)
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OpenAI then quickly announced its own agreement allowing the use of the technology in classified environments. When executives tried to explain the deal on social media, the company said it was taking a “broader, multi-layered approach” that relied not only on contract language but also on technical safeguards to protect itself from the same red lines as Anthropic.
Nevertheless, the controversy appears to have damaged OpenAI’s reputation among some consumers, with ChatGPT’s uninstalls surging by 295% and Claude climbing to the top of the App Store charts. As of Saturday afternoon, Claude and ChatGPT held the No. 1 and No. 2 positions, respectively, among free apps on the U.S. App Store.
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