The Pentagon is tapping Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, defense technology entrepreneur and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to identify the military capabilities, technologies and weapons the U.S. may need in future wars, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday.
The initiative, dubbed Project Meridian, will spend 120 days looking years and decades ahead at how warfare could change and what capabilities the U.S. military will need to maintain a technological edge.
"Project Meridian, the future of warfare, is not about developing new strategies or new policies," Hegseth said. Instead, he said, its purpose is to "identify the domains that we must conquer, and capabilities we must master."
Hegseth said the effort will focus on “discovering, developing, and fielding” weapons and systems that future U.S. troops may need on battlefields ranging “from under the Earth to beyond the moon.” He announced the initiative during a "State of the Force" address to junior officers and enlisted leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
Pentagon technology chief Emil Michael will oversee the project, with Musk, Luckey and Gingrich as co-leads and a broader team drawn from government, industry, academia and the policy world, Hegseth said.
None of the three co-leads has served in the U.S. military. Musk moved to Canada as a teenager in part, he has said, to avoid compulsory military service in South Africa.
The role puts Musk and Luckey in prime position to help identify the military’s future technology needs while their companies compete for billions in DOD business.
Musk's SpaceX holds a plethora of Pentagon contracts. In May, the Space Force awarded the company a $4.16 billion contract to build satellites designed to track and target airborne threats, just days after awarding SpaceX another $2.29 billion contract for a military satellite communications network.
Luckey's Anduril develops autonomous weapons and other military technology. The Marine Corps awarded the company a contract worth up to $642 million in 2025 for counter-drone systems.
The announcement was part of a broader Pentagon push into autonomous warfare including plans announced Wednesday for a new four-star Autonomous Warfare Command aimed at scaling autonomous and robotic systems across the military.
Anduril, SpaceX, Tesla and Gingrich did not immediately respond to requests for comment.