Electric truck maker Einride appoints former US security chief to board as it pushes into defence

Stockholm-based autonomous freight company Einride has appointed retired General Keith B. Alexander to its board.

Alexander, who also founded cybersecurity firm IronNet and sits on Amazon's board, will focus on defence-grade security, cyber resilience, and helping Einride scale its offer to NATO-aligned military organisations, the company said in a press statement.

The appointment follows the completion of Einride's first pilot contract with a European NATO-allied defence organisation. The company is now recruiting specialist talent and developing defence-specific expertise, chief executive Roozbeh Charli said in a statement.

"Having validated our technology in a defence context, we're now moving with intent," Charli said. "Appointing General Alexander to our Board of Directors is one concrete example of that."

Einride offers the Einride Driver, a vehicle-agnostic autonomous system that can be deployed on new platforms or retrofitted to existing fleets. The company says the system is suited to defence logistics because it combines autonomous technology with AI-powered planning and charging infrastructure.

The move marks a significant shift from Einride's founding purpose: decarbonising road freight. It follows a pattern visible across European climate tech, where companies originally built around environmental missions are reorienting towards defence customers. Satellite startups Constellr and ICEYE, for instance, have both pivoted from climate monitoring towards military intelligence applications as European defence spending accelerates.

Alexander said the appeal of Einride was its operational track record. "What brought me to Einride is its strong operational foundation, proven safety record and real operational experience," he said in a statement.

Einride serves more than 30 enterprise customers across seven countries and reports approximately $92m in expected annual recurring revenue from signed contracts. The company is also advancing a proposed public listing through a business combination with Legato Merger Corp. III on NYSE American, which it expects to complete in the first half of 2026.