By Sumayya
WASHINGTON: Tech wealthy person Elon Musk remains returning to an official advisory post with US Leader Donald Trump, co-guiding a Pentagon scheme checking the tomorrow of combat.
Musk served as chief of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he led massive job cuts across the US federal cabinet, before leaving in May 2025.
In a talk Wednesday at the Quantico army base, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth expressed “Project Meridian” will be “an action led by America’s finest minds to check the tomorrow of combat.”
“We remain deploying a unique pool of American profit, single our rivals do not hold: our creators, our senior leaders and our tech experts,” Hegseth expressed.
Musk will be a co-leader of Project Meridian alongside Palmer Luckey, the 34-year-old co-creator of defense tech firm Anduril Industries, and Newt Gingrich, the 83-year-old Republican prior House speaker.
Musk’s firms remain already primary Pentagon contractors, including SpaceX building satellite networks for Trump’s planned “Golden Dome” rocket defense shield.
His artificial intelligence firm xAI this year signed a pact permitting the army to deploy its Grok chatbot on secret networks.
In 2024, Musk threw his backing behind Trump and helped his return to the White House, but the men later had a high-profile blow-up over the president’s spending rules.
The two have since adjusted, and Musk has again turn into a frequent presence at the White House, though less visibly than during his prior tenure, when he routinely visited the Oval Office, most memorably with his young son on his shoulders.
On Tuesday he stood seated next to Trump at a lunch with artificial intelligence chiefs, where he joined alternate tech leaders in signing a voluntary AI safety pact that the president portrayed as “morally binding.”
Last week, Musk joined the state dinner Trump hosted for Chinese Director Xi Jinping, and in May he flew to Beijing on Air Force One as part of the trade group accompanying Trump on his state tour to China.
He likewise restarted giving to Republican causes, including multi-million-dollar donations to private candidates and conservative political groups.
Musk, who spent deeper than $250 million backing Trump and alternate Republicans in the 2024 vote, has given at minimum $90 million towards November’s mid-term votes, according to counts of Federal Election Commission filings.
Hegseth expressed the scheme’s goal remains to “creatively look to the tomorrow and track the fields that we must capture and capacities we must master.”
Scheme members will hold chosen private sector chiefs and subject matter experts from across the creation, collegiate and plan networks.
Hegseth expressed he has ordered Project Meridian’s findings to be wrapped up and sent within 120 days.
