Anthropic's counterintel hiring hit 33 in 2026, Fortune reports

Anthropic has hired 33 people into counterintelligence roles so far in 2026. That is up from 14 in 2025 and nine in 2024. OpenAI's count jumped to 22 this year from nine. Nvidia brought on 16. Those numbers, reported by Fortune, come from Revelio Labs hiring data, and most of the postings pay between $200,000 and $500,000.

"The AI firms have snapped up a lot of security talent," Christopher Falkenberg, a former US Secret Service agent now running Insite Risk Management, told Fortune. "Demand outstrips the supply of people with relevant experience."

The labs are pulling former intelligence leadership onto their mastheads too. OpenAI put former NSA director Paul Nakasone on its board and its safety and security committee in June 2024. Anthropic added former CIA deputy director David Cohen and former NSA cybersecurity director Dave Luber to its national security advisory council.

What the hires are watching for, in the words of Catherine Marinis-Yaqub, a former CIA officer now at Control Risks: "threats such as employees stealing trade secrets and attempts to exploit vulnerabilities, including via executives, by blackmail or coercion."

Recruiter Kathy Lavinder told Fortune that top corporate security chiefs can earn $1 million to $4 million a year once stock awards are counted.

The piece ties the surge to two incidents in particular: Jensen Huang's affair with an alleged Chinese spy, and an OpenAI engineer's arrest for planting listening devices. Anthropic has been in our feed heavily this week, including the Alameda stake math, and we covered the broader Huang backdrop via Forbes on his lack of super-voting shares.