Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that Elon Musk will co-lead a government project to study the future of war, marking the SpaceX CEO’s first return to government since leading the chaotic “Department of Government Effectiveness” or Doge. Musk will be joined by Palmer Luckey, CEO of defense technology company Anduril, and Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House.
A Department of Defense press release on the effort, called Project Meridian, describes its goal as “identifying the capabilities required to achieve absolute technological dominance on the next-generation battlefield.” The project will last 120 days and result in an unclassified public report of its recommendations.
The Defense Department project returns Musk to government work just over a year after his explosive tenure as Doge’s helm, which gutted federal agencies while failing to achieve his stated cost-cutting goals. It’s also a sign that Musk has regained the good graces of the Trump administration after a dramatic falling out with the president last year.
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Unlike Musk’s role at Doge — which has drawn heavy public criticism and costly boycotts of its products — the scope and goals of Project Meridian appear to take much less time for the tech mogul. The project aims to study how the U.S. military can use new technologies and wage wars in untested terrains, including deep underground and on the Moon, the Defense Department said in its statement.
“We are seeing rapid advances in artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics, biotechnology, among other critical high-tech areas. Together, these new areas, new ways of fighting, and technological developments will profoundly change the character of warfare,” Hegseth said in a memo. “To maintain global dominance, the United States must anticipate future operating environments and act decisively to develop the tools necessary to dominate there. »
Musk and Luckey are far from independent arbiters of the future of war. Both have extensive contracts with the Department of Defense through their companies, with Anduril’s activities centered on the government’s purchase of products it touts as the latest advances in warfare.
Gingrich was appointed to the defense policy council in December 2020 during the first Trump administration, but was removed less than three months later after Joe Biden became president. As early as the 1990s, he warned of the threat of an electromagnetic pulse attack that could knock out America’s power grids.
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