Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced “Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare,” a study of automated, artificial intelligence-driven weaponry.
Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
hide title
Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
A new Pentagon study focused on the future of war is raising ethical concerns about its authors’ potential conflicts of interest.
Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced “Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare,” a study of automated, artificial intelligence-driven weaponry.
In addition to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the other two leaders of the project are SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, co-founder of the defense technology company Anduril. The study is expected to last 120 days.
“We are witnessing rapid advances in artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics, biotechnology, among other critical high-tech areas. Combined, these new domains, new ways of fighting, and technological developments will profoundly alter the character of warfare,” Hegseth’s Sept. 30 announcement said. “To maintain global dominance, the United States must anticipate future operating environments and act decisively to develop the tools to dominate them.”
The study’s announcement came just days before President Trump’s highly anticipated speech at an Anduril facility in Baltimore on Tuesday.
Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril Industries, at an event in 2023. President Trump will speak at an Anduril facility on Tuesday.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
hide title
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Anduril Industries builds military drones used on land, sea and air and other related defense technologies. The company received its initial funding from tech billionaire and conservative political activist Peter Thiel.
SpaceX has secured more than $8 billion in U.S. defense contracts in 2026 alone, according to government contract announcements. One of its flagship products is Starshield, a network of military-grade low-Earth orbit satellites designed to provide secure communications for the government. The Pentagon is also using the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok.
There is concern that Musk and Luckey’s study is guided by their own financial interests, said Richard Painter, a corporate law professor at the University of Minnesota and former chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration.
“Everyone wants to sell things,” Painter said. “So, if we analyze it understanding that [Musk]Like every other contractor, he wants to make a lot of money selling AI to the Department of Defense. Whatever you propose, it’s not like you’re doing it as a neutral public service.”
“It’s a huge conflict of interest,” said a former senior Defense Department official who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from the Trump administration. The official said that both Luckey and Musk not only have billions of dollars in current defense contracts, but the study could also shape the types of munitions the United States purchases in the future. For example, you might recommend more drones or space assets (which both Luckey and Musk build) and fewer tanks, which they don’t build.
Hegseth said he has directed Emil Michael, the Defense Department’s chief technology officer, to commission Project Meridian through MITER Corporation, a nonprofit company that manages federally funded research across the country. Few details about the scope of the project were released in Hegseth’s one-page memo.
“MITRE is responsible for the analysis and recommendations, and will evaluate all input with technical rigor while applying appropriate conflict of interest and information safeguards,” a Defense Department spokesperson said. “The Project Meridian effort will examine the technologies and operational concepts necessary to maintain U.S. military advantage across the spectrum of future warfighting domains over a 10- to 20-year time horizon.”
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at a White House event on artificial intelligence on September 29, 2026.
Finn Gomez/Getty Images
hide title
Finn Gomez/Getty Images
The Defense Department did not disclose whether Musk and Luckey have been hired as special government employees (as Musk was when he led the Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-cutting effort) or as contractors. The nature of their employment on the project would dictate the rules they would have to follow, Painter said.
Executive branch employees are subject to federal criminal law that prohibits them from participating in government decisions that affect their own money or the financial interests of their family and business. Contractors, however, are not subject to this law.
The Defense Department did not respond to questions about potential conflicts of interest in hiring Musk and Luckey to lead the Project Meridian study. SpaceXAI and Anduril did not respond to requests for comment about their CEOs’ potential conflicts of interest.
While it is common for the federal government to convene working groups with industry leaders, the findings and recommendations of the Project Meridian study will need to be closely examined, a senior Government Accountability Office official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press about topics on which they have not published reports.
“There are safeguards they’re supposed to sign to keep them away from procurement activities and all that,” the GAO official said. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention to what comes out of the project.”
Furthermore, the motivations for creating this working group are unclear, the official said.
“I don’t know why we would need a new task force to talk about anything, since we’ve had a lot of people thinking about this issue for a while,” the official said. “What would be the point of this?”
Another former Pentagon official who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from the administration was less concerned. The official said there are always numerous efforts underway at the Pentagon and in the military services to think about the future of war, and all of them will likely feed into Project Meridian. The former official said it’s one thing to be on such a panel and make recommendations, and have Congress accept or reject them, but another for a panel member to write a requirement for a defense system and then bid for it.
The second Trump administration has employed different ethical standards than previous administrations, including holding stock in companies that could benefit from government-awarded contracts, Painter said.
“I don’t know why they stuck with defense stocks. In the Bush administration, we made everyone who went to the Department of Defense sell their defense stocks,” Painter said. “I’ve never seen so many financial conflicts of interest in any other administration. Even the first Trump administration wasn’t as bad as this one.”
