Trump plans to nominate GOP insider Sean Cairncross as national cyber director

President Donald Trump intends to nominate Sean Cairncross to be the next national cyber director, according to a list of dozens of impending administration nominees shared with Recorded Future News.

The document states the president will nominate Cairncross, who has held no cybersecurity leadership roles, to lead the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD). The list is expected to be formally sent to the Senate on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the document.

Cairncross served as the Senate-confirmed CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation for two years in the first Trump administration. Before becoming the head of the foreign aid agency, he served as a deputy assistant to the president during Trump’s first term.

Cairncross, who is the president and founder of the Cairncross Group, a Washington D.C.-based consultant firm, has held several high-profile posts within the Republican National Committee.

In 2024, he was selected to help oversee the RNC’s spending. He previously worked as the chief operating officer for the committee.

If approved by lawmakers, Cairncross would be the third Senate-confirmed leader of the ONCD. The White House office was created by Congress in 2021 to guide U.S. cyber strategy and oversee federal agencies’ digital security.

The nascent organization, which produced the first national cyber strategy and implementation plan, experienced multiple leadership turnovers during the Biden administration.

The White House has already taken down most of the web sites that contained the office’s previous work. Trump also repealed a Biden executive order that established a line of succession for ONCD.

It is unclear how the news administration intends to utilize the office. 

The Biden White House was reluctant to empower a Senate-confirmed official who would be accountable to Congress, despite the growing array of cyberthreats. There were also concerns about competing power centers after Biden created a position on the National Security Council devoted to cyber and emerging technologies.

Observers worry the administration will slash the size of the office even though its importance has only grown in recent months as Trump grapples with two major digital security challenges: the Chinese-linked Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon hacking campaigns that broke into U.S. critical infrastructure and telecommunication networks.

In both instances, it remains to be seen if the U.S.will ever be able to kick the perpetrators out of the compromised networks.

Cairncross would succeed Harry Coker, who was recently named Maryland’s commerce secretary.

Prior to leaving office, Coker, a former National Security Agency executive, wrote a blog post that called for the U.S. to prioritize digital security  and provide it with appropriate resources at all levels of government.

“Cyberspace is a borderless battlefield that is growing every day,” he wrote.