Kevin Harrington | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1969 or 1970 [1] |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Physicist; hedge fund manager; government official |
| Office | senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council |
Kevin Harrington is an American physicist, hedge fund manager and government official, who serves as senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council (NSC). [2] Harrington was previously a managing director at Thiel Macro LLC and a close associate of Peter Thiel. [3] [1] [4]
Harrington graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and physics from the University of Idaho. [3] He was a Goldwater Scholar and conducted mathematics research for the Department of Defense. [3]
He later pursued doctoral studies in physics at Stanford University as a NSF Fellow and consulted for the Stanford-based Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) on fissile material security and critical infrastructure protection. [1]
When at Stanford, he wrote for the Stanford Review , which later became known for spawning a large network of industry leaders and government officials. [5] [6] He is noted as having served as the senior class president in a 1995 Stanford news release. [1]
Harrington worked at Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital Management and later as managing director and head of research at Thiel Macro LLC, a San Francisco–based global macro hedge fund founded by Peter Thiel. [3] Harrington has been credited as a co-author of the original business plan for PayPal. [3]
He was trusted by Thiel, who considered him his alter-ego and intellectual sparring partner. [7]
After Trump won his first term, on Thiel's recommendation, Harrington served in Trump's "landing team" at the Department of Commerce. According to Rob Lalka, during this period he helped decide the positions political appointees received. [8]
In February 2017, Harrington was appointed by the White House as deputy assistant to the President for strategic planning, serving the National Security Council. [9] [3] Although he began with a midtier role, he was given the important task of rewriting the National Security Strategy. Lalka criticizes Harrington's work at this early stage as showing inexperience and dangerously pandering to Russia's interests, specifically concerning Harrington's advice that sanctions on Russian oil should be lifted and U.S. troops in Eastern Europe should be withdrawn. Later he moved to a more senior role within the NSC. [9] His role involved restructuring and revitalizing long-term strategic planning functions within the NSC. [4] Analysts described his appointment as part of an effort to integrate business-oriented and data-driven approaches into national security decision-making. [10]
In Trump's second term, Harrington again serves on the NSC as senior director. In September 2025, Politico reported that Harrington "is departing his role as NSC senior director for strategic planning, where he was helping to oversee the finishing touches on Trump’s new National Security Strategy." A White House official stated that Harrington would transition to the Department of Defense, though his specific role was not disclosed. [2]
In 2025, the Brazilian newspaper Brasil de Fato (described by The New York Times as part of a "global web of Chinese propaganda" [11] ) described Harrington's role as part of a broader "nationalist-conservative", "Christian-traditionalist" and anti-China alignment within Trump's foreign policy apparatus, which is also connected to the strategic placement of "Thiel acolytes" in key national security positions. The outlet writes that, "there are no right-wing realists on the NSC." [12]