Silicon Valley executives join the army (but don’t have to attend boot camps)
The U.S. military recently announced that four executives from some of Silicon Valley’s top tech companies have joined the Army Reserve as direct commissioners. The move is part of pushing for technical adoption in the military, but as the news media mission and purpose noted, it is very unusual.
The military said in a press release that the four executives were Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir. Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer of Openai; and Bob McGrew, consultant at the Thought Machine Lab, former Open Research Officer.
The four men were commissioned to be a senior colonel, part of a plan called “Beyond 201: Army Execution of the Legion of Innovation.” As the mission and purpose noted, these people will skip the usual process of conducting direct commissioning courses in Fort Benning, Georgia without completing Army fitness tests.
The Army did not answer the question of emailing Tuesday, but said in a statement posted on its website: “Their sworn in is just a bigger mission to inspire more tech professionals to serve without leaving their careers and show the next generation how to make a difference in uniforms.” As the Army said, their role in the Army reserves is to “work on targeted projects to help guide fast, scalable technological solutions.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the new reserve staff will serve about 120 hours a year and will have great flexibility in remote work. They will work to help the Army acquire more commercial technology, although it is not clear how to implement conflicts of interest issues, as people all work for companies that can imagine selling their goods to the Army. In theory, they won’t share information with companies and will not “participate in projects that can earn financial benefits for them or their companies.”
Silicon Valley has always benefited greatly from its ties to the U.S. military. During the Reagan administration, Silicon Valley companies received $5 billion a year from defense contracts, something that ordinary people may not remember in the 1980s. But this has been an uneasy alliance for consumer-facing tech companies, especially in recent decades.
This is all changing, according to many people who are consistent with President Donald Trump. As Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer of Meta who joined the Army Reserve, told the Wall Street Journal: “I think there are a lot of patriotism in the valley.”
Now that Bosworth and his partners have become more normalized during the president’s second term, they may be more open to their goals. But they also risk hitchhiking, and the reputation of the companies they represent – a president known for acting recklessly. After all, this was the man who told a city of 10 million people a few days ago that he evacuated and hinted heavily that he would make the United States war with Iran.
Some might think this is a good thing, at least, for some companies like Palantir who want war to be a wise business decision. But Openai and Meta products rely on public purchases. And, we have seen people like Elon Musk win a huge blow after connecting themselves to Trumpism. With Trump at the helm, any connection to the military will inevitably be dangerous during wartime. We’ve all seen viral videos of Trump’s march, right?
