JUST IN: Elon Musk Appointed to New Trump Admin Role

BREAKING: Secretary Pete Hegseth announces that Elon Musk will co-lead a new War Department effort studying the future of warfare during his State of the Force address.

Hegseth unveils Project Meridian, naming Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich to co-lead the effort under the… pic.twitter.com/stxOPThY8z

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 30, 2026

Click to expand...

BREAKING: Secretary Pete Hegseth announces that Elon Musk will co-lead a new War Department effort studying the future of warfare during his State of the Force address.

Hegseth unveils Project Meridian, naming Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich to co-lead the effort under the department’s Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael.

“An effort led by America’s best minds to study the future of warfare.”

Click to expand...

THERE HE IS! Elon Musk just got appointed by SecWar Pete Hegseth to co-lead the Pentagon's PROJECT MERIDIAN for the future of warfighting

And Elon made sure to personally show up for Hegseth's State of the Force address in Quantico

Elon with President Trump to surge Super… pic.twitter.com/vB22T1ok69

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 30, 2026

Click to expand...

THERE HE IS! Elon Musk just got appointed by SecWar Pete Hegseth to co-lead the Pentagon’s PROJECT MERIDIAN for the future of warfighting

And Elon made sure to personally show up for Hegseth’s State of the Force address in Quantico

Elon with President Trump to surge Super Intelligence at the White House yesterday, now he’s helping our military stay number one

PURE PATRIOT!

Click to expand...

Musk, the former leader of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), will lead the effort alongside defense tech billionaire Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich under the direction of War Department Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael.

“The best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside inside the Pentagon,” Hegseth said during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico. “There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them.”

Hegseth said the initiative would begin immediately, and he would meet with Musk, Luckey and Gingrich in a secure site just 200 yards from the stage after his speech.

Project Meridian will have 120 days to “ruthlessly map the trajectory of wars, domains and technologies,” culminating in a public rollout of its findings and a classified annex.

Hegseth described a sweeping mandate that stretches “from under the Earth to beyond the moon.”

Rather than developing new military strategies or policies, the group will seek to identify “the domains that we must conquer and capabilities we must master” and focus on “discovering, developing and fielding” weapons and systems that could be needed by future generations of American troops.

Musk and Luckey enter the effort with firsthand experience developing technology for the U.S. military. Musk’s SpaceX is a major Pentagon contractor, while Luckey founded Anduril Industries, a defense technology company specializing in autonomous weapons and other advanced military systems.

Their industry experience positions both men to bring an unusually close view of emerging technology and the modern battlefield to the Pentagon’s long-range planning. It could also raise potential conflict-of-interest questions as executives whose companies compete for defense business help identify the capabilities and technologies the military should pursue.

Meridian was one piece of a broader push announced by Hegseth Wednesday to remake the military around autonomous warfare and rapidly emerging technology.

Hegseth announced the creation of Autonomous Warfare Command, or AUTOWARCOM, a new four-star combatant command with what he described as “service-like authorities” to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force.

The War Department will also begin phasing in new occupational frameworks across the military departments to create dedicated career paths for what Hegseth called a new generation of “autonomous warfighters.”

“We should have been thinking about Autonomous Warfare Command ten years ago,” Hegseth said, explaining that Meridian is intended to look far enough ahead to anticipate the next technological transformation before the military falls behind.

The announcements came during the second iteration of what the War Department has dubbed Hegseth’s annual State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

Click to expand...

It’s Musk’s first official role advising the Trump administration since his very public feud last year with President Trump after departing DOGE. He has since reconciled with Trump.

Click to expand...