United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk will co-lead a new War Department effort to study the future of warfare, Fox News reported.
Making the announcement during his 'State of the Force' address, Hegseth unveiled the initiative, titled "Project Meridian."
According to Fox News, the high-level advisory panel will be co-led by Elon Musk alongside defence-tech czar Palmer Luckey and former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
The project will operate under the supervision of the department's Chief Technology Officer, Emil Michael.
Highlighting the objective of the mission, Hegseth described Project Meridian as "an effort led by America's best minds to study the future of warfare," Fox News reported.
Explaining the decision to bring private-sector giants into the high-level defence fold, Hegseth said, "The best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside inside the Pentagon. There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them," as reported by Fox News.
{{/usCountry}}Explaining the decision to bring private-sector giants into the high-level defence fold, Hegseth said, "The best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside inside the Pentagon. There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them," as reported by Fox News.
{{/usCountry}}According to the channel, the panel is set to begin work immediately, with Hegseth meeting Musk, Luckey, and Gingrich in a secure facility near the stage right after his speech.
Project Meridian has been given a strict 120-day deadline to "ruthlessly map the trajectory of wars, domains and technologies." The assessment will culminate in a public presentation of its broad findings alongside a classified annex for military leadership.
Hegseth outlined an expansive mandate stretching "from under the Earth to beyond the moon." Rather than formulating new military strategies and policies, the group will focus on identifying "the domains that we must conquer and capabilities we must master," while actively steering the process of "discovering, developing, and fielding" systems and weapons for future generations of American troops, Fox News reported.
Both Musk and Luckey bring firsthand experience developing technology for the U.S. military. Musk’s SpaceX serves as a major Pentagon contractor, while Luckey’s Anduril Industries specialises in autonomous weapons and other advanced military systems, as per Fox News.
The unveiling of Project Meridian is part of an overarching push by Hegseth to reorient the American military around autonomous warfare and rapidly emerging technology.
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As part of this overhaul, Hegseth announced the establishment of the Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM), a brand-new four-star combatant command endowed with "service-like authorities" designed to rapidly scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint forces.
The department will also introduce dedicated occupational frameworks to build career tracks for a new generation of "autonomous warfighters," Fox News reported.
"We should have been thinking about Autonomous Warfare Command ten years ago," Hegseth remarked, stressing that Project Meridian is intended to anticipate future technological shifts before American forces find themselves outpaced.