When CEOs Wear the Uniform: Technocracy in Camouflage

Four tech executives from Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir just became Army officers. Here’s what it means for the military, democracy, and accountability

Jun 21, 2025

Imagine this: you take a two-week online course on alternative healing, attend a short workshop on basic anatomy, shoot a few Nerf darts in a “wellness simulation,” and suddenly you’re allowed to call yourself “Doctor.” Absurd, right?

Now, swap out the white coat for military fatigues.

That’s essentially what just happened. In June, four high-ranking tech executives from Meta, Palantir, and OpenAI were sworn into the U.S. Army Reserve as Lieutenant Colonels. They didn’t go through boot camp. They didn’t earn their stripes through deployment, command, or hardship. Instead, they completed a two-week crash course focused on marksmanship, team-building, and military courtesies.

They now hold one of the Army’s most respected officer ranks. They wear the uniform, get paid, and have security clearances. They’re expected to shape the Army’s future on critical matters, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and battlefield modernization, all while continuing to lead their multimillion-dollar tech companies.

If that sounds like a prestige boost wrapped in military cosplay, you're paying attention.

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Meet the New Lieutenant Colonels

So who, exactly, just got handed one of the Army’s most respected ranks after a couple of weeks of “summer-camp soldiering”?

Not all executive influence is created equal. While they’ve passed security clearance, these aren’t blank slates. Each of these new uniformed “innovation officers” brings with them a distinct public profile and, in some cases, baggage.

Andrew “Boz” Bosworth – Meta

Bosworth, now Meta’s Chief Technology Officer, is best known for spearheading the company’s push into the metaverse through its Reality Labs division. However, his reputation isn’t without controversy. In 2016, he authored a now-infamous internal memo justifying Facebook’s aggressive growth strategy with the line, “Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools… we connect people. That’s our imperative.” Although he later distanced himself from those comments, they left an imprint of utilitarian thinking that critics say may have influenced his approach to military modernization. Now wearing a uniform, Bosworth will help shape Army strategy on immersive training and defense tech, while continuing to lead Meta’s expansive and often ethically fraught tech development.

Shyam Sankar – Palantir

Sankar, Palantir’s longtime Chief Technology Officer, has built his career around selling advanced surveillance and predictive analytics tools to government clients. His company plays a significant role in controversial programs with ICE, local law enforcement, and the intelligence community, often sparking outrage from civil liberties groups. Sankar himself has called this moment in global affairs “the 11th hour,” arguing that the West has “lost deterrence” and must re-arm with better tech. As a newly minted Lieutenant Colonel, he’s positioned to influence what tools the Army invests in, all while remaining at the top of a company that still actively pursues defense contracts.

See our earlier reporting on Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel here:
The Architect: Peter Thiel’s Long Game for Control
Marie Riverton
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Kevin Weil – OpenAI

A former executive at Twitter and Instagram, Weil now serves as OpenAI’s Chief Product Officer, where he helps shape some of the world's most widely used generative AI tools. Known for his bold public statements, he has described today’s models as “the worst AI you’ll ever use,” arguing that a radical transformation is coming quickly. Weil’s influence in military AI planning now places him at the center of a delicate balancing act: how to integrate powerful AI into battlefield systems while OpenAI simultaneously courts commercial deals and federal partnerships.

Bob McGrew – Thinking Machines / OpenAI (former)

McGrew is the least public-facing of the four, but no less influential. A key early architect of OpenAI’s research agenda, he helped guide the company’s foundational model development before stepping into an advisory role at a machine learning think tank. While McGrew hasn’t been associated with the more overtly controversial statements or contracts of his peers, he remains deeply embedded in a rapidly evolving field where government alignment can subtly steer research priorities in profound ways.

All four now hold the same rank as battalion commanders, special forces leaders, and field-grade strategists. And all four continue to sit at the top of organizations with clear commercial interests in federal contracts and policy direction.

These officers are part of a newly launched Army Reserve unit called Detachment 201, also known as the Executive Innovation Corps. The Army describes it as an experiment —a way to embed private-sector technology expertise directly into military modernization efforts. But it’s more than just a pilot program. With access to classified strategy, internal doctrine, and top-level decision-makers, Detachment 201 is already shaping the future of U.S. defense technology from inside the chain of command.

This Isn’t New But It Is Different

To be fair, this isn’t the first time the U.S. military has directly commissioned civilians. The practice dates back to the Civil War and became more formalized during World War II. In moments of crisis, the military has long sought out specialists such as doctors, engineers, lawyers, even railway executives, and given them officer ranks to quickly fill urgent gaps in capability.

In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously tapped William S. Knudsen, then the president of General Motors, to oversee U.S. wartime production. Knudsen accepted a commission as a Lieutenant General, the only civilian ever to enter the Army at that rank. However, there is a crucial distinction: he resigned from his civilian job, took a symbolic $1 salary, and served full-time under government command during a national crisis.

The tech executives in this new program are keeping their day jobs, shareholdings, six- and seven-figure salaries, and all the benefits that come with them.

They haven’t left Meta or Palantir. They haven’t relinquished their stock options or recused themselves from potential conflicts of interest. They’re part-time soldiers, pulling Reserve pay ($15 to $30k annually for part-time work), while continuing to lead companies that do, or could, benefit from federal contracts and strategic influence. Moreover, they’ve been brought in at the senior officer rank of O‑5, Lieutenant Colonel, a position that most career officers reach only after 15–20 years of service.

This isn’t about patriotism. It’s about prestige, access, and influence handed to those who already have the most of it.

The Risks Are Bigger Than the Headlines

On the surface, this might sound like a quirky Pentagon PR stunt — Silicon Valley meets the National Guard. But look closer, and the consequences are more serious than they seem. What’s being handed out here isn’t just rank and uniform. It is influence. It’s insider access. More importantly, it’s power, without the hard-earned trust, accountability, or transparency that typically accompany it.

Insider Access Means Competitive Advantage

These executives now sit in the room where classified decisions are made. That includes intelligence briefings, procurement planning, and strategic assessments that won’t reach their competitors for months, if ever. Even if they never explicitly pass information to their companies, the value of knowing what’s coming is immense. It enables their firms to adjust products, messaging, and R&D to match future military needs, giving them a silent edge over others. The companies these officers work for could effectively be designing against tomorrow’s contract requirements before they’re ever written.

Conflicted Loyalties Are Inevitable

The military insists these officers will recuse themselves from decisions that affect their companies. However, recusal doesn’t erase divided loyalty. If you’re a CTO at Palantir and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, who do you really work for? Your shareholders? Your command? Your conscience? These roles are supposed to conflict. That’s why we separate military authority from corporate profit. By merging them, even symbolically, the Army is opening the door to soft corruption: a slow drift toward decisions shaped by self-interest rather than national interest.

It Undermines Morale and Military Culture

Imagine you’re a soldier who has served 10 years. You’ve trained, deployed, and sacrificed, spent your career working toward promotion, leadership, and trust. Now, a tech executive with no basic training, no combat exposure, and no field experience walks in wearing silver oak leaves and starts “modernizing” your branch. The impact on morale is immediate and corrosive. Military culture is built on earned rank and shared hardship. This move sends the opposite message: that rank can be fast-tracked if you're wealthy, well-connected, or already in power. It hollows out the meaning of service and risks alienating the very people the Army depends on most.

It Embeds Technocracy Into the Chain of Command

This is more than a personnel decision. It’s a signal of ideological shift. By embedding tech executives — not soldiers, ethicists, or public-interest scientists — into leadership roles, the Army is deepening its dependence on a technocratic worldview, one that assumes solutions come from scale, automation, surveillance, and code, rather than from lived experience, human complexity, or community-centered thinking. It’s the quiet normalization of elite influence over democratic oversight, and it risks transforming defense policy into a corporate product roadmap.

It Bypasses Democratic Oversight

Congress wasn’t consulted. The public wasn’t informed. There was no debate. This program didn’t emerge from a national commission, a defense review, or a public hearing. It happened by fiat, quietly, behind closed doors, and with little transparency. That’s not how public institutions are supposed to work in a democracy. The military doesn’t just protect national security; it represents national values. This move undercuts one of the most important values: accountability to the people it serves.

We’ve Seen This Before. Recently.

In early 2025, Elon Musk assumed an unelected position as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a Trump administration initiative aimed at reducing federal spending. Without Senate confirmation or meaningful oversight, he and his team obtained sweeping access to federal data systems, procurement decisions, and agency operations. Their approach led to mass firings, elimination of transparency protocols, and repeated false fraud claims as a basis for cuts, prompting resignations, budget blowback, and lawsuits. Critics called it a corporate coup, warning it marked a lethal combination of secretive power, ideological zeal, and insider access. Although Musk has returned to his CEO duties full-time as of May, the DOGE chainsaw continues to run.

Now imagine a similar pattern playing out in the Pentagon. Just as Musk’s team weaponized access to public systems, even redefining fraud to fit their agenda, these tech executives stand to influence U.S. defense priorities from inside, with few guardrails. The DOGE episode illustrates precisely how symbolic uniforms, backdoor access, and ideological leverage can quickly distort democratic institutions.

We’ve reported extensively on DOGE. Check out this one for an example.
Note: This article is more than 45 days old and now lives in the archive. Become a paid subscriber the full 700+ article archive and exclusive access.
DOGE: The $40 Million Government Improv Show
Mar 8
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The Federal government isn’t a tech startup, and neither is the U.S. Army.

There’s a Better Way to Modernize the Military

If the goal is to modernize the Army’s approach to AI, cyber, and emerging tech, we agree. It needs to happen. However, there are better, more democratic, and more accountable ways to do it than handing out uniforms to CEOs.

Use Civilian Advisory Roles, Not Uniforms

The military already works with civilian contractors, academic fellows, and think tank partners. There’s no reason these tech executives couldn’t have been brought in through advisory boards, special fellowships, or civil service appointments, all of which could offer insight without conferring military rank, authority, or symbolic legitimacy. The decision to give them uniforms wasn’t necessary. It was political theater.

Prioritize Practitioners, Not Just Executives

If the goal is real innovation, why pick C-suite leaders who haven’t written code or built a model in years? Why not bring in staff engineers, senior product developers, AI researchers, or technical operations experts, the people who actually build the tools and know the pain points? The military doesn’t need press releases. It needs systems that work in the field.

Create Firewalls Against Conflicts of Interest

No one still employed by a company bidding for defense contracts should be allowed to wear the uniform — period. If someone wants to serve, they can take a leave of absence. Anything less is a soft version of insider dealing, no matter how you dress it up.

Bring Democratic Oversight Back Into the Process

Programs like Detachment 201 should not be implemented without public debate, congressional hearings, and thorough ethical review. Rank-and-file soldiers deserve to know who is joining their ranks and why. Taxpayers deserve to know whether those new officers are truly serving the public interest or just building a better launchpad for their companies.

Most importantly, the military needs to source solutions from the experts already in their midst.

Listen to the Innovation From Within

No one is better at identifying solutions than the people who do the work every day. Outside expertise can offer valuable perspective, but the most enduring and practical innovations come from within, from soldiers who have lived the realities the Pentagon is trying to modernize.

Ask anyone in any industry: frontline workers are constantly solving problems. They develop the most sustainable and scalable tools, not because they’re trying to impress a boardroom, but because they have to make things work in the moment, with real consequences on the line.

CEOs are focused on shareholders and short-term gains. Soldiers are focused on outcomes, survival, and the well-being of their fellow troops. If the military truly wants innovation, it needs to look not just to Silicon Valley, but to the motor pools, flight decks, and mess halls where creativity meets reality every day.

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Rank Should Mean Something

The U.S. Army didn’t need to commission tech executives to modernize. It didn’t need to hand out uniforms, ranks, and security clearances to CEOs already leading multimillion-dollar firms. It chose to, and in doing so, it blurred the line between public service and private power.

In a nation where real service members train for years, deploy to war zones, and sacrifice family stability and personal safety, rank should be earned, not appointed for prestige. Leadership should come from experience, not clout. And modernization should reflect the needs of those who serve, not just the ideas of those who sell.

There are better ways to bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and national defense. They start with humility, transparency, and democratic oversight, not a shortcut through summer camp and a salute. If this is how we modernize the military, then we’re not building a stronger Army. We’re building a brand.

What You Can Do

Call Congress
Tell your representatives that military rank and security access should not be handed to corporate executives without transparency, oversight, or public debate.
Call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121
They’ll connect you with your senator or House representative.
Sample Script:
“Hi, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent from [City, State]. I’m calling to express my concern about the U.S. Army commissioning tech executives into officer ranks with security clearance while they continue leading private companies. I believe this undermines military morale, public accountability, and ethical standards. Please support oversight and public hearings on Detachment 201 and future military-civilian integration programs. Thank you.”
Support Watchdogs and Grassroots Orgs
Keep pressure on the Pentagon and Congress by supporting organizations that fight for accountability in government and national security.
- Project on Government Oversight (POGO) – pogo.org
- Open the Government – openthegovernment.org
- Veterans for Peace – veteransforpeace.org
- ACLU – particularly their work on surveillance and military transparency – aclu.org