Ryan Riedel – a veteran of Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm and a former techie at the U.S. Cyber Command – started work on Friday as the new chief information officer (CIO) at the Department of Energy (DoE), according to sources with knowledge of the agency’s actions.
The Energy Department did not respond to a request for confirmation and comment on the new CIO appointment.
According to his LinkedIn page, Riedel has been the lead network security engineer at SpaceX since late 2022, and before that, he held the title of network security engineer with the company from late 2020.
Brownsville, Texas-based SpaceX – more formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. – was created by Musk in 2002 and designs and builds rockets and spacecraft.
Prior to his tenure at SpaceX, Riedel was a network manager with U.S. Army Cyber Command from 2019 to 2020. Before that, he held tech and engineering roles for seven years at the Corpus Christi Army Depot, which focuses on aircraft maintenance.
Riedel is a seven-year U.S. Navy veteran with service dates from 2007 to 2014.
