SpaceX, Palantir, and OpenAI Reportedly Teaming Up for Sweet, Sweet Defense Funding

New The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse just downloaded: According to the Financial Timesmajor security technology company Palantir is Biography of Palmer Luckey Anduril is negotiating with SpaceX and OpenAI (among other technology players) to form a partnership to develop US government defense contracts.

The goal of the group, which is said to be planning to announce its membership as soon as January, is to disrupt the “big” contractors who are in the habit of making large contracts with the Pentagon. In the integrated consortium, there are Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing.

There is little doubt that legacy brands pay well for the security role. According to Review of the Department of Defense’s Fiscal Year 2023Lockheed Martin took $61.4 billion, RTX (née Raytheon) got $24.1 billion, and Boeing got $20.1 billion. In 2021, 71% of Lockheed Martin’s total revenue came from contracts with the US government. Less than 50% of both Boeing and RTX’s annual sales went to immediate consumption. As American Prospect previously reported, this is especially state-funded companies but the government has no real control over work or leadership.

So can the safety and security of the country be improved by disrupting the chaos of the three commanders at the Pentagon? Perhaps, thinking that building more weapons and giving them to allies in conflicts that range from genocide is good for national security, which, let’s call it suspicious.

But this assembling mainly technology companies as a hammer to destroy the oligopoly? It is unclear whether this is a change in the status quo.

Palantir has carved out a niche for itself as the defense department’s go-to AI system. This year alone, it snagged a $100 million contract building anti-AI weapons and $480 million expanding the Pentagon’s data analysis and decision-making tools. The company has been more than happy to lend its technology to questionable programs, including being the technical backbone of Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, helping to lead the end of migrant families and to support the big shot which caused the separation of children and parents. The company technology has also been at the center of Israel’s ongoing occupation in Gaza where it is they killed more than 45,000 people.

Anduril, called “highly controversial tech“Writer Bloomberg, has built sensor towers to be used along the US-Mexico border to track migrants and researched the development of autonomous devices. The main play of the company is to develop combat dronesbut it also has eyes building satellitesall of which have important ethical questions.

OpenAI recently announced a partnership with Anduril for the project anti-drone systemsbut it seems that this will be the first of many collaborations if the consortium agrees. This agreement, which has made others confusion among OpenAI staff those who don’t particularly want to get involved in the defense industry, come after OpenAI quietly the language has been removed from its operating system prohibiting the use of its capabilities for military and military purposes.

And on top of it all, It’s Peter Thiel all the way down, baby. Thiel, a techno-libertarian lizard who has never been quiet trying to place his acolytes in as many organizations as possible, he has his hands in both companies. He founded Palantir, the founder of OpenAI, put significant financial support behind Anduril, and was an early investor in SpaceX. He has proven to himself that he is a small man with a capable mind far-too-generous can be summed up as “technological progress regardless of human cost.” Thiel’s biographer, Max Chafkin, he told Time Thiel should be afraid, he says, “When you combine the hatred of democracy with the traditions of corporations and billionaire money you can destroy it.”

Suddenly, the maybe-bad-but-bad-for-old-school-security-contractors don’t seem so bad.