Musk, Luckey and Gingrich Will Lead a Pentagon Study on Future Warfare

On September 30, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will co-lead "Project Meridian", a 120-day study of how war is likely to change and what the US military will need to fight it. The findings are due by January 28, 2027.

The headlines have ranged from "Musk to design America's weapons" to "Pentagon hands warfare to billionaires". The documented facts are narrower. This is a study with three co-directors, commissioned through the department's technology office, that will produce recommendations. Whether those recommendations become programmes, budgets or contracts is a separate process that has not started.

What is confirmed

• The commission. Hegseth signed a memo on September 30 commissioning "Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare". It is published on the Defense Department's media site. It directs Emil Michael, the department's chief technology officer, to commission the work through a partner organisation. The memo does not name that organisation.
• The task. According to the memo, the study is to examine the battlefields of the future, identify which weapons and technologies the military will need to dominate in them, and propose actionable steps to start developing, testing and fielding those capabilities. Several outlets quoted the announcement as saying the effort "will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes".
• The scope. The memo covers every future warfighting domain, "from subterranean depths to the cislunar frontier", meaning from underground to the space between Earth and the Moon. It names artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics and biotechnology as fields that will change how wars are fought.
• The leaders. Musk, Luckey and Gingrich are co-directors. A supporting team of academic, policy and industry experts is described in coverage of the memo, but its members have not been named.
• The output. The department says the findings will be delivered as an unclassified report released to the public, plus a classified annex.

What is not known yet

Several basics are still missing. The partner organisation running the study has not been named. The Pentagon has not detailed what ethics rules will apply to the co-directors, whether they are paid, or what employment status, if any, they will hold. It has not said whether the study will follow the federal advisory committee rules that normally govern outside panels, which call for balanced membership and generally open meetings. Reporting describes these as open questions, not as established problems.

Why the appointments drew conflict-of-interest questions

Two of the three co-directors run companies that sell to the Pentagon. SpaceX, which Musk leads, holds major defence work: in May the Space Force awarded it a $4.16 billion contract for satellites designed to detect and track airborne threats, days after a separate $2.29 billion award for a military satellite communications network. Anduril, which Luckey co-founded, builds autonomous systems; in March the US Army awarded it an enterprise contract worth up to $20 billion covering drones, counter-drone systems and its AI software platform, Lattice.

The Guardian and other outlets reported concerns that leaders whose companies sell autonomy, drones and space systems will help define which capabilities the military should buy. Several reports stressed that the concern is about incentives and influence; none has shown that either man has received an improper benefit from the project. The flip side is that builders of these systems know what is technically possible today. Which of those weighs more will depend on the governance questions above, which is why they matter.

What "future warfare" technology means here

The memo's own list is a useful map of where defence money and attention are heading, and it overlaps heavily with civilian advanced tech:

• AI and autonomy: software that fuses sensor data, flags targets for human review, or lets drones and vehicles operate with limited supervision. Anduril's Lattice platform, described in the Army contract coverage, is one example of this category.
• Robotics: uncrewed ground, air and sea systems, which are increasingly cheap enough to be used in large numbers.
• Space: satellite constellations for communications and for tracking moving targets from orbit, the kind of system SpaceX is building under its Space Force contract.
• Directed energy: lasers and high-power microwave systems, often discussed as a cheaper way to defeat drones.
• Biotechnology: named in the memo without detail.

None of this tells us what Project Meridian will actually recommend. It tells us which fields the department has asked it to look at.

What it means for the tech industry

For technology companies, the signal is that the Pentagon wants commercial builders, not only traditional defence contractors, shaping its long-range thinking. Companies working in autonomy, computer vision, satellite services, batteries and drones may see more defence interest, and more scrutiny of dual-use products that serve both civilian and military customers. For AI vendors in particular, the line between a general-purpose model and a defence tool is becoming a procurement and policy question, not just an ethical one.

What it means outside the United States

For readers in Canada, and in Francophone Africa where many governments buy or receive Western security technology, the recommendations will matter in two ways. First, US priorities tend to set what allies and partners are offered, from surveillance drones to satellite connectivity. Second, the public version of the report is a rare chance to see, in writing, how the US expects autonomy and AI to be used in conflict. Countries that are drafting their own rules on autonomous weapons, data sovereignty and satellite internet licensing will be able to read it directly, and should.

Questions You Should Be Asking

• Which organisation is running the study, and will its contract and staffing be public?
• What recusal rules apply when a recommendation touches a product that SpaceX or Anduril sells?
• How much of the final report will be public, and how much will sit in the classified annex?
• If you supply dual-use technology, would your product be affected by tighter export or end-use rules that follow?
• For governments outside the US: what review will apply before adopting systems the report recommends?

What To Watch Next

The first concrete signal will be the naming of the partner organisation and any ethics agreement covering the co-directors. After that, the date that matters is January 28, 2027, when the unclassified report is due. Compare its recommendations with the products the co-directors' companies sell: that is the simplest test of whether the concerns raised this week were warranted.

Sources

• US Department of Defense: Commissioning of Project Meridian (memo, September 30, 2026)
• CNBC: Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich to help Pentagon with warfare initiative, Hegseth says
• Stars and Stripes: Elon Musk, Project Meridian
• The Hill: Hegseth puts Musk, Luckey, Gingrich in charge of military future warfare review
• Axios: Musk returns to Trump world for Pentagon war study
• TechCrunch: The Pentagon taps Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to help decide what the military should do next
• Engadget: Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey will advise the government on the future of warfare
• UPI: Hegseth appoints Musk, Gingrich, Luckey to lead warfare project
• Business Standard: What Project Meridian, led by Musk and Palmer Luckey, means for US defence
• The Guardian (via inkl): Hegseth puts the future of warfare in the hands of major donors
• Fox News: Musk tapped to co-lead Pentagon's Project Meridian on future warfare
• Space.com: SpaceX wins $4 billion Space Force contract for satellites that track airborne threats
• US News (Reuters): US Space Force awards SpaceX $4.16 billion deal
• DefenseScoop: Army awards Anduril $20B contract with an eye toward counter-drone capabilities
• TechCrunch: US Army announces contract with Anduril worth up to $20B