American billionaire Elon Musk's Pentagon warfare panel sued by three watchdog groups

Three watchdog groups have sued the U.S. Defense Department over a Pentagon panel on the future of warfare co-led by American billionaire Elon Musk, alleging it was set up in violation of federal law and is filled with people who stand to profit from its advice.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Public Citizen and the Project On Government Oversight filed the lawsuit on Nov. 2 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The defendants are the Defense Department, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. The groups claim the department broke the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires advisory panels to be formally chartered, announced in advance, open to the public and fairly balanced in membership.

The claims are allegations, and no court has ruled on them.

Hegseth created the panel, called Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare, in a Sept. 30 memo. In a speech the same day, he said it "will be co-led by three of our nation's best minds: Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich." Luckey is the founder of Anduril Industries Inc., a defense technology company, and Gingrich is a former speaker of the House of Representatives.

The panel has 120 days to study future battlefields, identify the weapons and technologies the military will need, and propose ways to build and field them. Its findings are due on Jan. 28, 2027. MITRE Corp., a nonprofit that runs federally funded research centers, is managing the project and is to produce an unclassified report of no more than 30 pages, with classified annexes.

Conflict claims

The complaint alleges that Musk and Luckey are "both leaders and stakeholders of major defense contractors with substantial financial interests" in the panel's work. It says SpaceX, Musk's rocket and satellite company, holds about $8 billion in Defense Department contracts, including a $4.16 billion satellite threat-tracking contract, and that Anduril has been awarded about $25 billion in Pentagon contracts.

"Nineteen of the twenty-one members of Project Meridian work in the private sector," the complaint says, adding that many of them have significant financial interests in the panel's findings. The two government members are Michael and Victoria Coleman, the Air Force's chief scientist.

The groups also allege that the department never filed a charter, gave no public notice of meetings and has not released records, even though the panel met at least twice, on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. They say its membership is unbalanced, and that the Project On Government Oversight asked on Oct. 29 for an independent government accountability expert, William Hartung, to be added and received no reply.

They are asking the court to throw out Hegseth's memo and the appointments, declare the panel unlawful, bar it from meeting or advising the Pentagon until it complies with the law, stop the department from relying on its work so far, and order its records released.

"The Federal Advisory Committee Act sets clear requirements about transparency and avoiding conflicts of interest," said Donald K. Sherman, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. He said the panel "must either comply or stop operating."

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said of the members: "Very predictably, they will recommend more spending, much more spending, on more AI-enabled weaponry."

The Pentagon has previously defended the project, saying MITRE would review the panel's recommendations with technical scrutiny and safeguards against conflicts of interest.

Musk's return to government

The panel marks Musk's return to an official role in the Trump administration. He led the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting effort, before leaving in May 2025.

SpaceX absorbed xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence company, in February. Musk, who also runs Tesla Inc., is the world's richest person, with a fortune of about $869 billion, according to Forbes.