Musk returns to government work a year after leaving DOGE
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday named Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, to lead Project Meridian, a new 120-day Defense Department project on the future of warfare, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, former Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich and Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey serving as co-leads.
The project marks Musk’s return to government work a year after he left the Trump administration, following his tenure leading the Department of Government Efficiency, which “gutted many governmental agencies with uncertain savings,” UPI reported.
According to a Defense Department memo, the initiative seeks to identify “the capabilities required to achieve absolute technological dominance on the next-generation battlefield.” The project will run for 120 days and produce an unclassified report of its recommendations, The Guardian reported.
Hegseth said the project is “futuristic on purpose” and is not meant to develop new strategies or policies, The Hill reported.
“We should have the humility to recognize that the best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside within the Pentagon,” Hegseth said. “There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them.”
None of the three co-leads has served in the U.S. military. Gingrich briefly served as a member of the defense policy board in December 2020.
The companies led by Musk and Luckey both compete for Defense Department contracts worth billions, The Guardian reported. Anduril’s business is centered on government purchases of products advertised as the latest in warfare, The Guardian said.
“We are witnessing rapid advances in artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics, biotechnology, among other critical high-tech areas,” the Defense Department release said. “Combined, these new domains, new ways of fighting and technological developments will profoundly alter the character of warfare. To maintain global dominance, the United States must anticipate future operational environments and act decisively to develop the tools to dominate in them.”