Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticized bureaucratic barriers hampering artificial intelligence development and delivery and promised to break them down in a speech Monday at SpaceX’s Starbase launch site.
Mr. Hegseth confirmed that the Pentagon will be tearing down the roadblocks obstructing the rapid development of artificial intelligence and building a new system focused on delivering capabilities to warfighters as quickly as possible.
“The challenge is that our legacy approach to technological development assumes that technology moves in a linear way and that only existing companies can provide it,” Mr. Hegseth said Monday night. “That ends today.”
Mr. Hegseth’s SpaceX speech is part of his “Arsenal of Freedom” speaking tour, a series of talks to major defense industrial sectors around the country.
He spoke earlier on Monday to employees at top U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, where he insisted that the company’s F-35 fighter jets need to be equipped with the most advanced technology.
His visits to SpaceX and Lockheed Martin could signal that the Trump administration sees SpaceX as a key partner in defense. The company is responsible for $4 billion worth of contracts with NASA and is one of the largest companies permitted to launch sensitive satellite technology into space. Additionally, the administration is reportedly working with SpaceX to restore internet access in Iran amid protests through its Starlink technology.
In Monday’s speech, Mr. Hegseth praised SpaceX as one of the few firms working without a “risk-averse culture” and CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to increase efficiency.
“We need to be blunt here. We can no longer afford to wait a decade for our legacy prime contractors to deliver a perfect system,” the defense chief said. “Winning requires a new playbook. Elon wrote it with his algorithm: Question every requirement, delete the dumb ones and accelerate like hell.”
The Pentagon on Monday expanded on Mr. Hegseth’s speech in a release, formally announcing an “Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy” that will “unleash experimentation, eliminate legacy bureaucratic blockers, and integrate the bleeding edge of frontier AI capabilities across every mission area.”
The new strategy will work to bring in top AI talent from the private sector and will eliminate “woke DEI from our AI capabilities and ensure our military has objective, mission‑first systems,” the Pentagon said.
Mr. Hegseth announced that Cameron Stanley, a former executive at Amazon Web Services, would serve as the Pentagon’s next chief digital and artificial intelligence officer. Mr. Stanley and a team of other former private sector partners will focus on accelerating development and overcoming roadblocks at the Pentagon.
“We will take a wartime approach to people and policies that block this progress,” Mr. Hegseth said. “Barriers to data sharing, authority to operate … test and evaluation and contracting are now treated as operational risks, not simply bureaucratic inconveniences; we are blowing up these barriers.”
He added that he has created a “barrier removal SWAT team” within the Office of the Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering that is authorized to waive certain requirements and inform him about issues that are slowing development.
The focus on efficient development and the speedy delivery of capabilities has remained a consistent focus of the Pentagon under Mr. Hegseth’s leadership. In November, the secretary announced sweeping changes to the Department of Defense’s acquisition process, telling the defense industry that “speed and volume will rule.”
President Trump has also weighed in, insisting that he will not allow defense contractors to pay dividends or conduct stock buybacks until they dedicate more resources to research and development.
