The Pentagon is eavesdropping tesla and space x CEO Elon Musk, defense technology entrepreneur and Anduril co-founder Palmer Lackey, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will identify military capabilities, technologies, and weapons that the United States may need in a future war, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday.
The effort, dubbed Project Meridian, will spend 120 days looking years and decades into the future to consider how warfare might change and what capabilities the U.S. military will need to maintain its technological edge.
“Project Meridian, the future of war, is not about developing new strategies or new policies,” Hegseth said. Instead, he said, the aim is to “identify the territory we have to conquer and the capabilities we have to acquire.”
Hegseth said the effort will focus on “discovering, developing and fielding” weapons and systems that future U.S. forces may need on battlefields “from below the Earth to beyond the moon.” He announced the initiative during a State of the Army address to junior officers and noncommissioned officers at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia.
Hegseth said the project will be overseen by Emile Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, with Musk, Lackey and Gingrich as co-leads, and a broad team drawn from government, industry, academia and policy.
None of the three co-leaders have served in the U.S. military. Musk said he immigrated to Canada as a teenager, in part to avoid mandatory military service in South Africa.
The roles put Musk and Lackey in key positions to help identify the military’s future technology needs as the two companies compete for billions of dollars in Pentagon business.
Mr. Musk’s SpaceX has a large number of contracts with the Department of Defense. In May, the Space Force awarded SpaceX a $4.16 billion contract to build satellites designed to track and target aerial threats, days after awarding SpaceX an additional $2.29 billion contract for military satellite communications networks.
Lucky’s Anduril develops autonomous weapons and other military technology. The Marine Corps has awarded the company a contract worth up to $642 million in 2025 for anti-drone systems.
The announcement was part of a broader Pentagon push toward autonomous warfare, including plans for a new four-star autonomous warfare force aimed at expanding autonomous robotic systems throughout the military, announced Wednesday.
Anduril, SpaceX, Tesla and Gingrich did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
