Elon Musk returns to Trump administration to co-lead Pentagon war study

Musk, who in 2024 threw his support behind Trump and helped his return to the White House, served as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he spearheaded sweeping job cuts across the US federal government.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk will make a return to officially advising US President Donald Trump's government by co-leading what the Pentagon called a study on the future of war.

Musk served as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he oversaw sweeping job cuts across the US federal government, before departing in May 2025.

In a speech Wednesday at the Quantico military base, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said "Project Meridian" will be "an effort led by America's best minds to study the future of warfare." "We are leveraging a unique source of American advantage, one our adversaries do not have: our innovators, our senior leaders and our technologists", he added.

Musk will be a co-leader of Project Meridian alongside Palmer Luckey, the 34-year-old co founder of defence technology company Anduril Industries, and Newt Gingrich, the 83-year old Republican former House speaker.

Musk's companies are already major Pentagon contractors, including SpaceX building satellite networks for Trump's planned "Golden Dome" missile defence shield. His artificial intelligence firm xAI this year signed a deal allowing the military to use its Grok chatbot on classified systems.

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