Musk-led war commission triggers alarms in Pentagon
Two of the Defense Department’s biggest contractors will help lead a project that could directly benefit them.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, from left, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attend the welcome ceremony for President Donald Trump by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2026. | Maxim Shemetov/AP
Pentagon officials warn that Pete Hegseth’s plan for a pair of billionaire defense contractors to help steer the military’s future will produce conflicts of interest that threaten the long-term integrity of the department.
The Defense secretary’s effort, dubbed Project Meridian, asks SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey — along with former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich — to “map the trajectory of future warfare.” They are supposed to report back in four months.
The Pentagon revealed few details about the commission or the scope of its jurisdiction beyond the four-paragraph memo that authorizes it and an insistence the U.S. needs to “dominate” the next generation of warfare. It’s unclear whether the initiative would give the executives the vast sway Musk enjoyed last year as leader of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. But both Musk and Luckey head companies that have contracts with the Pentagon worth billions of dollars — and nine current and former officials said any preferential access could allow them to funnel even more business their way.
“This is entirely indicative of the decay and oligarchy that has taken over our government and, in many cases, directly through purchasing influence and power and authority, blatantly right in front of us,” said Wes Bryant, a retired Air Force master sergeant who until last year led the Pentagon’s civilian harm assessments. “They’re not even trying to hide it anymore.”Related Tags
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has handed Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey a direct seat at the table shaping how America fights its future wars, and the congressman representing the heart of Silicon Valley wants answers. Project Meridian, formally commissioned on September 30, gives the two tech executives — alongside former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — 120 days to study everything from subterranean warfare to cislunar space, with a public report and classified annex due by January 28, 2027.
The study’s stated mission is to examine how artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics, and biotechnology should be woven into future U.S. military operations, according to the U.S. Department of War. Hegseth discussed the project in an address focused on developing and fielding future weapons. As Sam Liccardo noted in a social media post pointing to coverage of the announcement, Musk and Luckey are now positioned to help decide the military’s technology priorities — a role that has drawn scrutiny given both men’s deep financial stakes in defense contracting.
Musk’s SpaceX holds more than $6.4 billion in active Pentagon contracts, including a $4.16 billion satellite deal and a $2.29 billion communications contract, while Luckey’s Anduril Industries holds a Marine Corps counter-drone contract worth up to $642 million along with missile and autonomous aircraft awards, per the TechCrunch reporting cited in connection with the announcement. Critics argue that Project Meridian may align the two men’s business interests with their new official advisory roles, according to that same reporting on the initiative.
MITRE Brought In to Police Conflicts of Interest
To address those concerns, the Department of Defense assigned the MITRE Corporation — a federally funded research nonprofit that manages research and development centers for the federal government — to administer Project Meridian and conduct conflict-of-interest evaluations for outside advisers, according to WVIK. The arrangement includes conflict-of-interest reviews for outside advisers.
But scrutiny has also landed on Pentagon official Emil Michael, whom Hegseth directed to commission the study through MITRE. Michael, the Defense Department’s chief technology officer, earned up to $24 million in profit on January 9, 2026, from selling private stock in Musk’s xAI — after the Pentagon signed a December 22 agreement paving the way for xAI’s Grok chatbot to be deployed on GenAI.mil, according to The Guardian. Michael had originally disclosed holding between $500,000 and $1 million in xAI stock when he joined the administration in 2025, the outlet reported.
Michael also disclosed selling between $5 million and $25 million in Perplexity AI stock in June 2026, a firm from which he had previously accepted a personal loan of up to $500,000 before entering federal service, according to Decrypt. Michael served on Perplexity’s advisory board before stepping down upon joining the Department of Defense in May 2025, the same report notes.
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included ‘FORTRESS America,’ a plan for military base power grid independence, an expansion of officer commissioning pipelines at five universities, and a new Office of Religious Affairs, according to Army.mil’s account of the speech. The address was delivered to junior officers and enlisted personnel, underscoring how the Pentagon is framing the technology overhaul as part of a broader restructuring of the department.
Hoodline has previously reported on local fallout from Hegseth’s announcement, including an Atlanta council member’s push to ban police robot weapons following the Autonomous Warfare Command reveal, and on Liccardo’s separate legislative work defending a foreign graduate work program. Whether Project Meridian’s eventual recommendations reshape how the Pentagon buys technology remains to be seen
U.S. Army Sgt. Brandyn Brooks, a 15P aviation operations specialist with the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, Task Force CARDINAL, monitors mission systems at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, June 8, 2025. Brooks supports operational integration of Project MAVEN tools, enhancing real-time situational awareness for Army aviation assets. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Brianna Badder. Source: DVIDS.
The Department of Defense is expanding its use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by formalizing Palantir Technologies’ Maven system as a long-term program, signaling a shift from experimental tools to operational infrastructure.
Project Maven began in 2017 as a Pentagon effort to use AI to help analysts process massive volumes of surveillance imagery and video, but it has since evolved into a broader military intelligence and targeting platform that fuses data from multiple sensors to identify objects, assess threats, and support operational decisions.
Now, the Pentagon is moving to integrate those capabilities more broadly across the force. While the geospatial intelligence portion of Maven was designated a program of record under the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2023, the Pentagon is now moving to expand that designation into a broader, department-wide program with wider adoption across the services.
Elevating Maven to a “program of record” places it within the military’s formal budgeting and acquisition system, ensuring continued funding and long-term deployment.
The company’s footprint inside the Pentagon has grown through a series of expanding contracts rather than a single award. In addition to Maven-related deals, the Army awarded Palantir an enterprise agreement in 2025 that could be worth up to $10 billion over a decade, aimed at consolidating data and software systems across the service.
Palantir’s work on Maven itself has also expanded through multiple awards, including a five-year, $480 million Army contract in 2024, a roughly $100 million follow-on expansion later that year, and a 2025 contract modification valued at up to $795 million for continued system support and software licensing.
The latest move does not replace those contracts. Instead, it builds on earlier efforts by expanding Maven from a narrower intelligence program into a broader, Pentagon-backed capability intended for long-term, department-wide use.
What the System Does and Why It Matters
Maven uses artificial intelligence to process imagery and sensor data collected from drones, satellites and other surveillance systems. The goal is to reduce the workload on human analysts and speed up decision-making.
In practice, that means the software can help analysts find objects faster, flag notable activity, and feed those detections into systems used for operational awareness.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency says Maven’s AI tools are integrated into military workflows to detect and identify objects in imagery and video, while helping analysts locate objects faster and spot abnormal or significant activity in near real time.
Palantir’s role is to provide the underlying data architecture that connects these systems. Its platforms allow different military units to share and analyze information across networks and use it to support planning and operations
Rethinking defense ties with US, Israel eyes shift from patronage to partnership
Story by Nava Freiberg
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Once thought irreversible, Israel’s rock-solid bond with the United States has become a matter of debate, with the future shape of ties between the allies hanging in the balance. At the center of those deliberations is Jerusalem’s defense partnership with its most powerful and beneficent friend, which faces the possibility of being pared back significantly.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
