Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has handed one of the Pentagon's most ambitious new studies to three of America's highest-profile figures: Elon Musk, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Announced Wednesday during Hegseth's "State of the Force" address, Project Meridian is a 120-day initiative tasked with identifying the military capabilities the United States will need to maintain its technological edge. The project will be facilitated within the Pentagon by Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael, drawing in private-sector leaders, academics, and military specialists.
Its scope is sweeping. The Pentagon says Meridian will study future battlefields from underground environments to the cislunar frontier — the region between Earth and the Moon — while assessing artificial intelligence, autonomy, robotics, directed energy, and biotechnology.
"We should have the humility to recognize that 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."
The effort is not meant to develop new strategies or policies directly. Instead, Hegseth said, the team will "creatively look to the future and identify the domains that we must conquer," with the final report unclassified and released to the public.
For Musk, the role marks his first official return to the administration's fold since leaving the Department of Government Efficiency last year. He has recently renewed close ties with the White House, including a lunch with the president alongside top AI leaders to discuss the future of artificial intelligence.