Top line
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named SpaceX chief Elon Musk co-leader of the Meridien Projectrevealing that the billionaire tech mogul will be a leading voice in the new initiative that will study, identify and propose the development of new weapons and technologies for the US military.
Hegseth said Wednesday that Musk would be part of the military project.
Photo by ALLISON ROBBERT/AFP via Getty Images
Key facts
Hegseth said Musk will co-lead the project with Anduril and Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
A memorandum Project Meridian’s commissioning manager says it will “study the battlefields of the future,” identify weapons and technologies that allow U.S. soldiers to “dominate in these environments” and propose solutions to “begin developing, testing and fielding these capabilities.”
The memorandum does not explicitly name Musk, although it notes that Project Meridian “will leverage critical perspectives from outside the Pentagon, drawing on a group of senior technologists, innovators, business leaders, policymakers and national security experts.”
The project’s findings and recommendations will be submitted to the Hegseth office no later than January 28, 2027.
To watch
The project’s recommendations will be made public in an unclassified report, according to the Department of Defense. website.
Key context
The DoD project marks Musk’s latest involvement in the Trump administration after leading the Department of Government Effectiveness last year. Musk led the agency as a special government employee and resigned after a legal deadline of 130 days. Musk’s role in Project Meridian appears to be less of an official position and more based on consultation. Musk supported and donated to President Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential election and adopted the label “First Buddy” during the early months of Trump’s second term. However, the two parted ways after Musk blasted Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which Musk said would increase the federal deficit. Musk threatened to start a new political party and, following further criticism of the bill, Trump threatened to cut federal subsidies to Tesla and SpaceX. The schism exploded in June 2025, when Musk claimed that Trump’s name was in Epstein’s unpublished files and that was the reason they had not been released. Musk and Trump have since returned to better terms, with Musk taking a leading role at this week’s White House tech summit, which was backlit by growing concerns about artificial intelligence and its near-term existential threats to humanity.
Further reading
Trump Reportedly Said His Relationship With Musk Would Never Be The Same After Epic Fallout (Forbes)
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