Pentagon's top AI official sold Perplexity stock for up to $25 million

Pentagon spokesperson defends Michael’s compliance with ethics laws

Federal financial disclosure records reviewed by the Guardian show that Emil Michael, the top Pentagon official overseeing military artificial intelligence policy, sold his shares in AI search engine Perplexity in June for a value the disclosures place between $5 million and $25 million. Federal financial disclosure forms show ranges of dollar values rather than specific figures, and the records do not indicate whether Michael made a profit on the transaction.

Perplexity has recently been reported to be seeking a $30 billion valuation. Some of Michael’s Perplexity stock was vested and some unvested; in his ethics agreement, he pledged not to profit from the unvested shares, and the disclosures do not specify which portion he sold. The Lever reported in March that Michael held Perplexity stock.

Michael’s 2025 disclosure filings also show he had received a personal loan from Perplexity a year earlier, of between $250,000 and $500,000 at an interest rate of 4.57 percent. He had joined a Perplexity advisory board but said in his disclosures that he stepped down upon entering federal service. Perplexity announced a contract with the US government’s General Services Administration in November 2025, though records do not show specific Pentagon ties.

A Pentagon spokesperson said Michael and other defense officials “are in full compliance with ethics laws and regulations. Any claims otherwise are false.” The spokesperson said the department has “a rigorous, multi-layered ethics framework.”

Ethics expert Richard Painter, a former White House lawyer under George W. Bush, disagreed with that defense. “He should have sold all interest in the company before he started working,” Painter said. “That’s the way we would have done it back when I was working for president.” Painter said Michael’s ownership in an AI company would not be a violation of law but would have raised questions because of appearances. “Most administrations would have said get out of that stock before you start that job,” Painter said.

The Perplexity sale is not Michael’s only profitable stock transaction disclosed during his Pentagon tenure. Earlier in 2026, the Guardian reported that Michael had profited from his investment in Elon Musk’s xAI, sold in January, with a gain of between 400 and 4,800 percent, worth up to $24 million.

Michael’s latest disclosure also shows he realized gains of at least 473 percent on holdings he owned in Brex LLC, a separate non-public company. According to the records, Michael sold his Brex holdings in April for at least $5 million. Brex, a financial software company backed by Peter Thiel, was acquired by Capital One that month. Michael had reported in March 2025 that his Brex holdings were worth a maximum of $750,000; his profit in the sale could have been as large as $24 million or as little as $4.25 million.

Michael had been a consultant at Brex. In a December episode of the tech podcast Sourcery on which Michael appeared, Brex was a sponsor; Michael was still an investor in the company at the time of the recording. Brex does not appear to do any reported work with the US government.

Michael has been the public face of the department’s disputes with AI company Anthropic. He was previously chief business officer at Uber from 2014 to 2017. BuzzFeed News reported in 2014 that Michael had privately floated digging up dirt on critical journalists; Michael said the comment, which he said was made at what he thought was an off-the-record dinner, did not reflect his views.