A new Pentagon study focusing on the future of warfare is raising ethical concerns about its authors' potential conflicts of interest.
Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced "Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare," a study of automated and AI-powered weaponry.
In addition to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the other two leaders of the project are SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of defense technology firm Anduril. The study is expected to take 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 September 30 announcement said. "To maintain global dominance, the United States must anticipate future operational environments and act decisively to develop the tools to dominate in them."
The study's announcement came just days before an expected speech by President Trump at an Anduril facility in Baltimore on Tuesday.
Anduril Industries builds military drones that are used on land, sea and in the air and other related defense technologies. The company received its initial funding from tech billionaire and conservative political activist Peter Thiel.
SpaceX has secured over $8 billion in U.S. defense contracts in 2026 alone, according to government contract announcements. One of its flagship products is Starshield, a military-grade, low-Earth-orbit satellite network designed to provide secure communications for the government. The company's AI chatbot, Grok, is also being used by the Pentagon.
There is a concern that Musk and Luckey's study would be guided by their own financial interests, said Richard Painter, a professor of corporate law at the University of Minnesota and former chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration.
"They all want to sell stuff," Painter said. "So if we go into it understanding that [Musk], like all the other contractors, he wants to make a lot of money selling AI to the Defense Department. Whatever he proposes, but it's not like he's doing it as a neutral public service."
"It's a massive conflict of interest," said a former senior Defense Department official who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal from the Trump administration. The official said that not only do both Luckey and Musk have billions of dollars in current defense contracts, but the study could also shape the types of munitions the U.S. buys in the future. For example, it could recommend more drones or space-based 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 the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit company that manages federally-funded research across the country. Few details were released about the scope of the project in Hegseth's one-page memo.
"MITRE is responsible for the analysis and recommendations, and will evaluate all inputs with technical rigor while applying appropriate conflict-of-interest and information safeguards," said a spokesperson for the Department of Defense. "The Project Meridian effort will examine the technologies and operational concepts required to sustain U.S. military advantage across the full spectrum of future warfighting domains across a 10-20 year time horizon."
The Department of Defense 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 cost-cutting effort — or as contractors. The nature of their employment on the project would dictate the rules they would need to follow, Painter said.
Executive branch employees are bound by federal criminal law that bans them from taking part 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 Department of Defense did not respond to questions about the potential conflicts of interests of 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 assemble task forces with industry leaders, the findings and recommendations of the Project Meridian study will need to be scrutinized, said a senior official at the Government Accountability Office, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press on issues they have not published reports on.
"There are safeguards that they're supposed to sign to keep them away from procurement activities and whatnot," the GAO official said. "That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be paying attention to what the project comes out with."
Additionally, the motivations for creating this task force are unclear, the official said.
"I don't know why we would need a new task force to talk about something since we've had many folks thinking about this issue for a while," the official said. "What would the point of this be?"
Another former Pentagon official who requested anonymity fearing retribution from the administration was less concerned. The official said there are always numerous efforts underway in the Pentagon and in the military services to ponder the future of war, and all those will likely feed into Project Meridian. The former official said it's one thing to be on such a panel and make recommendations, and for Congress to accept or reject them, and another for a panel member to write a requirement for a defense system and then bid on it.
The second Trump administration has employed different ethical standards than the administrations that preceded it, including holding stocks in companies that could stand to profit from contracts awarded by the government, Painter said.
"I do not know why they held on to defense stocks. In the Bush administration, we made everybody sell their defense stocks who went into the Defense Department," Painter said. "I never saw anywhere near as many financial conflicts of interest in any other administration. Even the first Trump administration wasn't as bad as this."
Copyright 2026 NPR
