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Project Meridian: Hegseth names Musk and Luckey advisers on the future of warfare
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has placed Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey in advisory roles on Project Meridian, a Pentagon project on the future of warfare unveiled at Quantico, Virginia, on Wednesday. Both men rank among Maga's most significant campaign donors, and both own companies that benefit from federal defense contracting.
By Haut Monde Post
• October 1, 2026
• 3 Min Read
Project Meridian: who is on it and who runs it
Hegseth unveiled the project at an event in Quantico, Virginia, on Wednesday, dubbing it Project Meridian. The defense secretary has placed tech billionaires Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey in advisory roles on the Pentagon project about the future of warfare.
- •Elon Musk, tech billionaire
- •Palmer Luckey, tech billionaire
- •Newt Gingrich, Trump loyalist and former speaker of the House, is also part of the project
Pentagon official Emil Michael, a former Uber executive, is to lead Project Meridian. Previous reporting has found that Michael made millions in profits from non-public Musk company AI stock while in federal office and while guiding the defense department's artificial intelligence efforts.
Musk: quarter-billion-dollar donor with a federal contracting footprint
Musk was one of the chief financiers of Trump's 2024 victory, spending more than a quarter of a billion dollars in the run-up to the election. Recent campaign records show he remains a major force heading into the coming midterms. Musk's America Pac has spent:
- •$3.4m attacking Democratic candidate Abdul el-Sayed in Michigan's Senate race
- •$6.4m to oppose Democrat James Talarico in the hotly contested Texas Senate race
- •$1m to support the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton in that contest
His company SpaceX has been a crucial contractor for US space programs since 2018, and in the second Trump administration it has emerged as a key player in the Golden Dome ballistic missile defense project, an effort that could cost as much as $1.2tn.
Luckey: Anduril founder turned Republican fundraising force
Luckey, who is 34, first found celebrity in the tech world as the inventor of a virtual reality headset before going on to found Anduril, a defense contracting company that has already won significant federal contracts. The company is backed by Joshua Kushner's equity fund and has acquired manufacturers of underwater drones, UAVs, space technology and counter-UAVs.
August reporting identified Luckey as one of the most important "bundlers" for Republican candidates on the west coast, and one source described him as the dominant figure in west coast Republican fundraising.
- •He has hosted and co-hosted fundraisers for candidates from Trump himself to Ken Calvert, Rick Scott, Mehmet Oz and Ted Cruz
- •On 22 August, he and his wife co-hosted a $50,000-a-head fundraiser to "Keep The Senate"
- •Listed guests included John Thune of South Dakota, Mike Rogers of Michigan, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Jon Husted of Ohio
Subterranean warfare and a watchdog's caution
Earlier this year, Luckey said he thought warfare in the second half of this century would be dominated by subterranean conflict, and claimed his company holds "working prototypes of subterranean systems". Vehicles in such a conflict, he has said, could:
move through he crust of the earth the same way that submarines move through the water
Brendan Glavin of Open Secrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign spending, said bringing major industry players into positions at the Pentagon is not something new. What feels different now, he said, is the substantial financial support Musk and Luckey have delivered, and continue to deliver, for the Republican party. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Project Meridian is to be led by Emil Michael.
