• Former national security advisor Mike Waltz has been nominated for UN Ambassador, Trump said Thursday.
• A day before the news broke, Waltz was photographed using Signal during a cabinet meeting.
• The Trump administration has previously faced criticism over officials, particularly Waltz, using Signal.

On Wednesday, before news of his ouster broke, now-former national security advisor Mike Waltz was photographed during a Cabinet meeting looking at what appeared to be the encrypted messaging app, Signal.

He was a key player in a Signal snafu in President Donald Trump's second administration, referred to online and in some media coverage as "Signalgate." The Atlantic's editor in chief was inadvertently included in a sensitive defense conversation about military action in Yemen being conducted in a group chat through the app.

Trump announced Waltz's ouster via social media on Thursday.

Trump plans to nominate Waltz as the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations, according to a post the president shared on Truth Social, adding that Waltz has "worked hard to put our Nation's Interests first" and will continue to do so in his new role.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will now also be acting national security advisor.

Waltz, a former Army Special Forces soldier, previously represented Florida's 6th congressional district from 2019 to 2025 before becoming Trump's national security advisor in January.

In a photo of Thursday's cabinet meeting, a contact with the name of Vice President JD Vance and portions of a message were visible, as were additional message threads. Although the view of the content was obstructed, the last names "Rubio," "Witkoff," and "Gabbard" were visible, potentially referencing the Secretary of State, United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, and United States Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Representatives for Rubio, Witkoff, and Gabbard did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

The bottom of Waltz's phone's screen displays a message that looks like Signal's typical PIN verification message, but instead, the message displayed asks Waltz to verify his "TM SGNL PIN." The "TM SGNL PIN" message is displayed on an unofficial — and less secure — version of Signal created by a company called TeleMessage, which makes clones of popular messaging apps, but enables the ability to archive messages, 404 Media and The Washington Post reported.

Trump, in an interview with The Atlantic published on Monday, said, "I would frankly tell these people not to use Signal." The outlet's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, said last month that he had been inadvertently added by Waltz to a group chat on the app.

The Signal group chat Goldberg says he was added to, called "Houthi PC small group" contained other officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and included discussion of details of a planned US strike on Houthi rebels.

Business Insider previously reported that a former Pentagon spokesperson described the Signal incident involving Goldberg as causing a "full-blown meltdown" at the Pentagon, and "a real problem for the administration."

However, despite widespread public criticism, Waltz and some other administration officials still appear to be using the app.

"As we have said many times, Signal is an approved app for government use and is loaded on government phones," White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told Business Insider of Waltz's use of the app.

A spokesperson for Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Under President Joe Biden's administration in 2024, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a guide "for all audiences" outlining the best practices for secure personal communications amid a cybersecurity attack linked to the Chinese government. The CISA guide included Signal as an option for safer personal messaging.

However, guidance released by the Department of Defense during the Biden administration explicitly said that unmanaged messaging apps, including Signal, "are not authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information."

• The dustup over US officials' use of Signal to discuss military plans offers a workplace lesson.
• If you screw up on the job, it's best to own it — even when it's embarrassing.
• One CEO told BI he's never fired anymore over a mistake but he has for malfeasance.

The first thing to do when you screw up big time at work: stop digging.

In fact, owning up is a way for leaders, in particular, to pass along good lessons to an entire organization, executives told Business Insider.

"It's a lot easier to correct mistakes than double down on them," said Sam Naficy, CEO of software maker Prodoscore. "I tell my teenage kids this."

As easy as it is to understand, it can still be difficult for workers and leaders alike to acknowledge their screwups, especially when they seem like doozies to critics.

It's a real-time lesson playing out at the highest levels of the US government after revelations Monday that President Donald Trump's national security advisor, Mike Waltz, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among others, discussed military plans on Signal in a group chat that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic magazine.

'I don't want secrets'

Often, the fallout from a mistake is worse when we try to outrun it. It's echoed in the Nixon-era precept that in government and beyond, the coverup is often worse than the crime.

Naficy said that in nearly 29 years running companies, he's never fired anyone over a mistake — though has dismissed a handful of people for what he saw as malfeasance, which he said is distinct.

"I don't want secrets. If there's an issue — if there is a mistake that has been made — let's surface it right away," Naficy said.

The pressure can be especially intense for leaders who are, rather unrealistically, supposed to have all the answers.

Ayanna Jackson, who founded and runs AEJ Consulting, an executive coaching and career-development firm in metro Washington, DC, told BI that bosses who are dominant or conscientious in their leadership styles might have a particularly hard time facing their blunders.

"Both of those styles hate to be wrong," she said.

Jackson said that if leaders don't cop to their mistakes, it can put pressure on those below them to make excuses on their behalf. That only makes things worse, she said.

"The tone at the top matters," Jackson said. "Things trickle down."

Not owning your mistakes can backfire

Jackson said that rather than standing on a tarmac before reporters to downplay the security breach as Secretary Hegseth did, he could have said using Signal for a back-and-forth with other senior government officials was a mistake. Then, the focus might have turned to security protocols and considerations over commercial messaging apps.

Instead, she said, statements by Hegseth and others in the group minimizing the sensitive nature of the texts — essentially saying there's nothing much to see here — further trained the public's focus on the leaders' words.

That's borne out by the fact that following officials' statements, the Atlantic on Wednesday published messages from the Signal chat — two days after the initial revelations.

"He would have done so much better coming out and taking ownership of it and simply saying, 'You know what? We recognize the error that was made,'" Jackson said, referring to Hegseth.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement to BI that the messages make clear that classified materials and war plans weren't shared and that Secretary Hegseth "was merely updating the group on a plan that was underway and had already been briefed through official channels."

The White House didn't respond to BI's request for comment on the actions of Waltz and Vice President JD Vance, among others, in using Signal to discuss military plans.

Laying it all on the table

Other leaders see room for improvement in how top government officials are handling the Signal story. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN that those involved know they made a mistake and should act accordingly.

"They should own it and fix it so that never happens again," he said.

Kyle Hanslovan knows all too well about owning up to mistakes. He served in the US Air Force and spent more than a decade working on security issues involving the National Security Agency. He's now cofounder and CEO of Huntress, a cybersecurity firm.

In 2021, Hanslovan said, an outsider gained access to Huntress's testing servers after the company left them vulnerable to intrusion. The weak spot: the password "abc123!!!"

He said Huntress took steps to address the hack and went public with the issue even though customer data wasn't breached.

Hanslovan, who wrote about the incident in a blog post, said the transparency helped the company learn while also earning respect from clients for its candor.

"Coming forward, as a security company, built more credibility," he said, adding that trust in Huntress — as well as the startup's revenue — rose after the company disclosed the incident.

Hanslovan said the company didn't fire the engineer responsible but instead used the situation to help the organization improve.

"That engineer has actually been a really big part of making sure that we don't make those mistakes again," Hanslovan said.

Still, when you screw up, you might want to pause — if you can. Jackson, the executive coach, said she often encourages leaders to take a beat before rushing to social or in front of a microphone.

"Make sure your response is measured, appropriate, professional, and addresses the needs of the audience that you're talking to," Jackson said.

• Elon Musk volunteered to help the White House find out how a journalist was added to a Signal chat.
• The White House said Musk's team is assisting with an investigation into the burgeoning scandal.
• In the chat, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed details of an airstrike before it occurred.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Wednesday said that Elon Musk is helping to probe how a top official added a reporter to a sensitive national security discussion.

"The National Security Council, the White House counsel's office, and also, yes, Elon's team," Leavitt said in response to a question about who is looking into the matter. "Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat. Again to take responsibility and to ensure this can never happen again."

On Tuesday evening, Michael Waltz, the White House national security advisor who's at the center of the scandal, said Musk had offered his assistance in figuring out what happened. It's the latest role for Musk, President Donald Trump's self-described "tech support" and the de facto DOGE office leader.

"We're going to get to the bottom of it. We have— I just talked to Elon on the way here," Waltz said on Fox News. "We've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened. But I can tell you, I can tell you for 100% I don't know this guy."

While serving as a White House senior advisor, Musk has remained chief executive of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.

Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, published a bombshell report on Tuesday detailing how he had been inadvertently added to a Signal group chat that discussed details of a planned US strike on Houthi rebels. Since then, the White House has tried to downplay the details discussed in a chat that included officials as high up as Vice President JD Vance.

On Wednesday, after Trump said no classified information was disclosed in the chat, Goldberg published screenshots of messages that showed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth naming specific times and weapon systems that would be used. The White House and Pentagon said the airstrikes were successful.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees the Pentagon, said his panel is asking an inspector general to probe the matter. Trump recently fired the Pentagon's inspector general, essentially a watchdog within the government, though the role has been filled on a temporary basis.

It's unclear what kind of technical expertise would be necessary to investigate the situation. Goldberg's screenshots show Waltz adding him to the chat. Signal, a secure messaging platform, allows users to add participants to a group chat. On Wednesday, Trump said "a bad signal" could have been at fault.

Trump and his allies have closed ranks around Waltz. The president has called him "a good man" and so far has expressed his faith in the embattled former GOP congressman.

The White House national security advisor is a powerful position, though it does not require Senate confirmation. During his first term, Trump went through four top national security officials and two acting advisors.

Top Trump officials included the editor of the Atlantic in a Signal group chat discussing plans to strike Houthis in Yemen. We explore Washington's reaction in this video collaboration between Politico and Business Insider.