Pentagon's AI Warfare Study, Led by Musk and Luckey, Draws Conflict-of-Interest Alarms From Ethics Experts
Project Meridian, announced by Hegseth with Newt Gingrich, is to be run through MITRE over 120 days, but the Defense Department won't say whether the two executives are government employees or contractors.
A new Pentagon study of the future of warfare is raising ethical concerns about the potential conflicts of interest of the people leading it, NPR reported. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced "Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare" last week, a review of automated and AI-powered weaponry that is expected to take 120 days.
Its three leaders are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, co-founder of the defense technology firm Anduril. Hegseth's September 30 announcement said advances in artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics and biotechnology "will profoundly alter the character of warfare," and that the United States "must anticipate future operational environments and act decisively to develop the tools to dominate in them."
The announcement came days before an expected speech by President Trump at an Anduril facility in Baltimore. Anduril builds military drones used on land, sea and in the air, and received its initial funding from tech billionaire Peter Thiel. SpaceX has secured more than $8 billion in U.S. defense contracts in 2026 alone, according to government announcements. Its products include Starshield, a military-grade satellite network, and its chatbot Grok is used by the Pentagon.
Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota corporate law professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, said the concern is that the study could be guided by the participants' financial interests. "They all want to sell stuff," he said. A former senior Defense Department official, who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal, called it "a massive conflict of interest." The official noted that both men have billions of dollars in current defense contracts, and the study could shape which munitions the military buys, for example more drones or space-based assets and fewer tanks, which neither builds.
Hegseth directed Emil Michael, the department's chief technology officer, to commission the study through the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit that manages federally funded research. A Defense Department spokesperson said MITRE is responsible for the analysis and recommendations and will apply conflict-of-interest and information safeguards, examining technologies over a 10-to-20-year horizon. Few other details were released in Hegseth's one-page memo.
The department has not said whether Musk and Luckey were hired as special government employees, as Musk was when he led the Department of Government Efficiency, or as contractors. Painter said the distinction matters. Executive branch employees are bound by a federal criminal law barring them from taking part in decisions that affect their own finances or those of their businesses. Contractors are not covered by that law. The Defense Department did not respond to questions on the issue, and SpaceXAI and Anduril did not respond to requests for comment.
A senior official at the Government Accountability Office, speaking anonymously because the agency has not published on the subject, said the findings will need scrutiny. Participants are supposed to sign safeguards keeping them away from procurement, the official said, but the motive for the new task force is unclear since many groups have already studied the question.
Another former Pentagon official was less concerned, noting that the military is always pondering the future of war and that those efforts will feed into Meridian. That official drew a line between serving on a panel whose recommendations Congress can accept or reject and writing requirements for a defense system and then bidding to build it.
