A battle over who charts the future of American warfare has moved beyond the Pentagon’s secure briefing rooms and into federal court.
At the center of the dispute is “Project Meridian: the Future of Warfare,” a newly established Defense Department advisory board created through a memo issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. To lead the initiative, the Pentagon appointed three prominent figures: technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, defense technology founder Palmer Luckey, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
A coalition of ethics and government watchdog organizations is now seeking a federal court order to shut the panel down.
In a joint lawsuit, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Public Citizen, and the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) allege that the panel operates in direct violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Congress enacted this post-Watergate transparency law to prevent corporate insiders and political donors from quietly shaping government policy behind closed doors, free from public oversight or the inclusion of diverse perspectives.
According to the complaint, the committee is riddled with conflicts of interest. Musk and Luckey lead major defense firms that actively compete for lucrative military contracts, and more than a dozen additional panel members hold significant financial stakes in the very weapons technologies on which they will advise the Pentagon to spend.
The plaintiffs argue that this arrangement effectively hands top defense contractors the authority to write their own funding mandates.
“Project Meridian would outsource design of grand military strategy to two extremist Pentagon contractors, Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “Very predictably, they will recommend more spending, much more spending, on more AI-enabled weaponry. That would simultaneously make the world more dangerous and starve funding for domestic and human needs. The law demands balance on advisory committees, precisely to prevent connected insiders like Musk and Luckey from writing policy at the expense of the public.”
Under federal law, advisory committees must maintain balanced representation, guard against self-dealing, and conduct their work in a manner open to public scrutiny. The watchdog groups contend that Project Meridian violates each of these requirements by operating in secrecy with a handpicked roster of industry insiders.
“The Defense Department is legally barred from getting advice in secret, by defense contractors with enormous potential conflicts of interest. But that’s exactly what Project Meridian is doing , soliciting private counsel from contractors about military capacity including the president’s largest political benefactor,” said CREW President Donald K. Sherman. “The Federal Advisory Committee Act sets clear requirements about transparency and avoiding conflicts of interest, and Project Meridian must either comply or stop operating.”
The lawsuit calls on the court to immediately suspend the committee’s activities and compel the Pentagon to dissolve the group unless it brings Project Meridian into full compliance with federal law, including the addition of independent voices who carry no financial interest in the outcomes.
“The federal government should not be outsourcing its vision on ‘the future of warfare’ to a panel dominated by individuals that stand to profit from it,” said Isabel Munilla, interim executive director of POGO. “For decades, the weapons industry has benefited from its outsized influence over the Pentagon, driving billions of taxpayer dollars on costly weapons systems that overpromise and underdeliver. Stacking Project Meridian with industry leaders will further skew national security policy toward corporate priorities, and away from the public interest. We cannot afford more wasteful defense spending. The committee must follow the law and add independent public interest representatives dedicated to government accountability.”
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