Musk rejoins Trump orbit to co-lead Pentagon war study — SkimNews
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- Pete Hegseth announced "Project Meridian" at Quantico military base, framing it as an effort to study the future of warfare and "identify the domains that we must conquer and capabilities we must master."
- Elon Musk, who departed as DOGE head in May 2025 after a public falling-out with Trump over spending legislation, will co-lead the project alongside Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
- Musk later resumed giving to Republican causes, including multimillion-dollar donations to individual candidates and conservative groups, before rejoining the administration in this advisory capacity.
- Hegseth directed Project Meridian's findings to be completed and submitted within 120 days, with members drawn from hand-picked private sector leaders and experts across the innovation, academic, and policy ecosystems.
- Luckey's defense technology company Anduril stands as a direct beneficiary of the kind of future-warfare capabilities the study is designed to surface, a structural detail the headlines do not foreground.
Why it matters: The Pentagon is outsourcing a 120-day war-planning exercise to a tight circle of defense-tech executives and political figures, with Anduril's Palmer Luckey — whose company sells autonomous weapons systems — sitting at the table alongside Musk and Gingrich, giving defense industry players direct input into which "domains" and capabilities the US military will prioritize next.
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