War Secretary Pete Hegseth has tapped Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to lead a 120-day Pentagon study identifying emerging battlefields and technologies the U.S. military could need decades from now, alongside a broader expansion of autonomous warfare capabilities.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Elon Musk is returning to a formal role advising the Trump administration as one of three outside figures chosen to help the Pentagon anticipate how warfare could change over the coming decades and determine which technologies the U.S. military will need to maintain an advantage.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that Musk, Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will co-direct Project Meridian, a new 120-day initiative examining future battlefields, weapons and emerging military technologies.
The project will operate under the direction of War Department Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael and is one of six initiatives Hegseth unveiled during his annual State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
According to the War Department’s official Project Meridian announcement, the group will examine future warfare across domains stretching from underground environments to operations beyond Earth and will ultimately produce both a public report and a classified annex.
“The best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside inside the Pentagon,” Hegseth said. “There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them.”
Hegseth said Project Meridian would begin immediately and told the Quantico audience that he planned to meet with Musk, Luckey and Gingrich at a secure facility roughly 200 yards from where he delivered the speech.
The group has been instructed to spend the next 120 days working to “ruthlessly map the trajectory of wars, domains and technologies.”
Its mandate reaches “from under the Earth to beyond the moon,” Hegseth said.
The project is not intended to produce a new U.S. military doctrine or replace existing war plans. Instead, Hegseth said its purpose is to determine “the domains that we must conquer and capabilities we must master” and identify how the military should approach “discovering, developing and fielding” systems likely to be required by future service members.
“The future of warfare is not about developing new strategies or policies. We already do that,” Hegseth said. “The purpose is to creatively look at the future and identify the domains we must conquer and capabilities we must master.”
The involvement of Musk and Luckey gives the Pentagon study two participants whose companies already work extensively with the U.S. military.
Musk’s SpaceX is a major government and defense contractor whose launch systems and satellite services have become increasingly important to U.S. national security and military communications.
Luckey founded Anduril Industries, which specializes in autonomous aircraft, surveillance systems, artificial intelligence and other defense technologies. The company has won major Pentagon contracts as the military seeks to field unmanned and AI-enabled systems more rapidly.
Gingrich brings a different background to the project as a former House speaker who has remained involved in national security and technology policy discussions since leaving Congress.
Their participation gives Project Meridian direct access to private-sector experience in aerospace, artificial intelligence, autonomy and defense manufacturing, areas Pentagon officials increasingly view as central to future conflicts.
It also creates potential conflict-of-interest questions because SpaceX and Anduril either hold or compete for federal defense contracts while Musk and Luckey participate in an initiative intended to identify technologies and capabilities the Pentagon should pursue.
No specific procurement authority was announced for Project Meridian, however, and the initiative itself is structured as a forward-looking study rather than a contracting office.
The War Department said Michael is facilitating the project, which will also include academics, policy specialists, technology experts and industry figures.
Its work is scheduled to conclude after 120 days with an unclassified report available to the public and a separate classified annex containing information the Pentagon determines cannot be released.
The initiative marks Musk’s latest role inside the Trump administration after previously leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
His new assignment is narrower and focused specifically on military technology and the future of warfare.
Hegseth introduced Meridian as part of a much broader effort to reorganize the Pentagon around rapidly developing technologies, particularly drones, robotics and artificial intelligence.
Among the most significant announcements Wednesday was the creation of the Autonomous Warfare Command, known as AUTOWARCOM.
Hegseth described it as a new four-star combatant command with “service-like authorities” intended to accelerate the development, procurement and deployment of autonomous and robotic systems throughout the military.
“We should have been thinking about Autonomous Warfare Command ten years ago,” Hegseth said.
The command is intended to prevent the Pentagon from responding slowly to technologies that can transform warfare before traditional procurement systems catch up.
Project Meridian is designed to look even farther ahead.
While AUTOWARCOM will concentrate on scaling technologies already becoming important on modern battlefields, Meridian is supposed to examine the next major changes before they become obvious.
The Pentagon also plans to phase in new occupational structures across the military services to create dedicated career paths for personnel specializing in autonomous warfare.
Hegseth described those service members as a new generation of “autonomous warfighters.”
The changes reflect lessons military planners have drawn from recent wars, where inexpensive drones, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and autonomous systems have increasingly affected reconnaissance, targeting, logistics and direct combat.
The Pentagon has faced continuing pressure to field such systems more rapidly rather than relying exclusively on traditional acquisition programs that can take many years to move from initial design to operational use.
Meridian is meant to extend that planning horizon years or potentially decades beyond the systems already being introduced.
The project is one of six major initiatives Hegseth announced during Wednesday’s State of the Force address.
The speech marked the second year Hegseth has used Marine Corps Base Quantico to deliver a broad assessment of military readiness and outline his priorities.
Last year, he summoned senior generals, admirals and other military leaders from around the world.
Wednesday’s audience was instead composed largely of younger personnel, including high-performing E-6 enlisted service members and O-3 officers selected from across the armed forces.
Hegseth described them as the military’s “current and future leaders on the front lines.”
He said he intends the State of the Force address to become an annual event in which the department evaluates military performance and presents new priorities.
The six initiatives announced this year extend beyond autonomous weapons and long-range technological forecasting.
Hegseth also outlined efforts aimed at strengthening military installations and supply chains against foreign disruption, developing new leadership and educational programs, expanding religious support for service members and planning a new major U.S. military installation.
Project Meridian, however, is specifically intended to challenge Pentagon officials to anticipate technological transformations before they reshape warfare.
Hegseth argued that relying solely on the military establishment to forecast future threats creates institutional blind spots.
That reasoning contributed to his decision to bring Musk, Luckey and Gingrich into the process.
The War Department said the project is intended to identify capabilities that could preserve U.S. technological superiority and deter future adversaries. If deterrence fails, officials said the goal is to ensure American troops enter a conflict with superior technology already available rather than rushing to develop it after hostilities begin.
Hegseth also used his Quantico speech to reinforce changes he has pursued in military culture and personnel standards.
“We are no longer the woke department or the weak department,” Hegseth said. “No fatties, no trainees, no weirdos, no beardos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors.”
He later turned his criticism toward portions of the news media, accusing some journalists of “partisan activism” that he said can jeopardize military personnel and operations.
Hegseth described such reporting as “fundamentally anti-American.”
“It’s sick. It’s a national betrayal. It’s treason, actually,” Hegseth said.
Those comments were separate from Project Meridian but came as part of the same address in which Hegseth laid out his broader effort to reshape both the culture and technological structure of the armed forces.
For Project Meridian, the immediate task is now defined by a tight deadline.
Musk, Luckey and Gingrich have 120 days to identify the emerging domains in which future wars could be fought, determine the technologies they believe the United States will need and recommend capabilities the Pentagon should begin developing before those threats fully materialize.
Their conclusions will then be split between a public report and a classified assessment for military and national security officials.
The initiative does not itself authorize new weapons programs or military operations. Its significance will depend on which technologies the group recommends and how aggressively Pentagon leaders act on those recommendations.
Combined with the creation of AUTOWARCOM and dedicated career paths for autonomous warfare, however, Project Meridian places emerging technology at the center of Hegseth’s effort to prepare the U.S. military for conflicts well beyond today’s battlefield.
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