Elon Musk lands new Trump administration role shaping future of American warfare

Elon Musk is taking on a new role in the Trump administration, this time helping the Pentagon determine which weapons and technology American troops will need to fight the wars of the future.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that Musk will co-lead Project Meridian, a new Pentagon initiative tasked with looking years and even decades ahead to identify emerging domains of warfare and the capabilities the U.S. military will need to dominate them.

Musk, the former leader of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), will lead the effort alongside defense tech billionaire Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich under the direction of War Department Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael.

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"The best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside inside the Pentagon," Hegseth said during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico. "There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them."

Hegseth said the initiative would begin immediately, and he would meet with Musk, Luckey and Gingrich in a secure site just 200 yards from the stage after his speech.

Project Meridian will have 120 days to "ruthlessly map the trajectory of wars, domains and technologies," culminating in a public rollout of its findings and a classified annex.

Hegseth described a sweeping mandate that stretches "from under the Earth to beyond the moon." 

Rather than developing new military strategies or policies, the group will seek to identify "the domains that we must conquer and capabilities we must master" and focus on "discovering, developing and fielding" weapons and systems that could be needed by future generations of American troops.

Musk and Luckey enter the effort with firsthand experience developing technology for the U.S. military. Musk's SpaceX is a major Pentagon contractor, while Luckey founded Anduril Industries, a defense technology company specializing in autonomous weapons and other advanced military systems.

Their industry experience positions both men to bring an unusually close view of emerging technology and the modern battlefield to the Pentagon's long-range planning. It could also raise potential conflict-of-interest questions as executives whose companies compete for defense business help identify the capabilities and technologies the military should pursue.

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Meridian was one piece of a broader push announced by Hegseth Wednesday to remake the military around autonomous warfare and rapidly emerging technology.

Hegseth announced the creation of Autonomous Warfare Command, or AUTOWARCOM, a new four-star combatant command with what he described as "service-like authorities" to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force.

The War Department will also begin phasing in new occupational frameworks across the military departments to create dedicated career paths for what Hegseth called a new generation of "autonomous warfighters."

"We should have been thinking about Autonomous Warfare Command ten years ago," Hegseth said, explaining that Meridian is intended to look far enough ahead to anticipate the next technological transformation before the military falls behind.

The announcements came during the second iteration of what the War Department has dubbed Hegseth’s annual State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

The setting was the same as last year, but the audience was markedly different. Hegseth summoned generals, admirals and other senior military leaders from around the world to Quantico for his first address, where he laid out sweeping changes to military standards, personnel and what he called the "warrior ethos."

This time, Hegseth addressed a younger generation of military leaders, including top-performing E-6 enlisted service members and O-3 officers from across the force. He called them the military’s "current and future leaders on the front lines" and said the address would become an annual opportunity to assess the state of the force and lay out his vision for its future.

Hegseth used Wednesday’s speech to unveil six new initiatives, ranging from the military’s embrace of autonomous warfare to an effort to make U.S. bases and defense supply chains less vulnerable to foreign disruption.

The secretary also used the address to deliver some of his most pointed rhetoric yet about his effort to reshape the culture of the military and about the news media.

"We are no longer the woke department or the weak department," Hegseth said. "No fatties, no trainees, no weirdos, no beardos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors."

Hegseth later accused some journalists of engaging in "partisan activism" that jeopardizes military operations and service members, calling such reporting "fundamentally anti-American."

"It’s sick. It’s a national betrayal. It’s treason, actually," Hegseth said.