Air Force bid for Tesla Cybertrucks in target practice symbolizes the ‘evolving' relationship between the Pentagon and Big Tech, expert says

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The U.S. Air Force is trying to acquire Cybertrucks to use as missile targets in battlefield training, according to recent filings. The military's invocation of the Tesla brand is emblematic of the tightening relationship not only between the Pentagon and Elon Musk, but with Big Tech more broadly, according to American University foreign policy professor Gordon Adams.
The U.S. Air Force is taking steps to acquire Tesla Cybertrucks—for the express purpose of blowing them up. But while the vehicles in this context are meant to be destroyed, the Air Force seeking out the Tesla brand is just another example of how Big Tech and the Department of Defense have become unlikely bedfellows, one defense spending expert said.
The U.S. Air Force Material Command, part of the Department of Defence, is looking to acquire two Cybertrucks 'for target vehicle training flight test events,' according to documents filed to the System for Award Management on Wednesday. The Air Force is also seeking out 31 other vehicles, including sedans and bongo trucks, to similarly likely use as missile targets. Enemies may 'likely' transition to using vehicles like Cybertrucks, which are more resistant to certain types of damages, according to the filings.
'Testing needs to mirror real world situations,' one document said. 'The intent of the training is to prep the units for operations by simulating scenarios as closely as possible to the real world situations.'
Citing market research conducted in February by a redacted source, one document said Tesla Cybertrucks are specifically called for in this type of battleground testing because of its 'aggressively angular and futuristic design, paired with its unpainted stainless steel exoskeleton,' that differentiates it from other models. The vehicles do not need to be fully operational, but rather be intact and able to move on their wheels, per the document.
According to Gordon Adams, a professor of U.S. foreign policy at American University who researches defense spending, the Air Force's decision to pursue Tesla vehicles for battlefield training is, in isolation, of little consequence—but it is indicative of the growing ties between the U.S. military and private sector tech.
'At one level, I don't see it as terribly unusual for them to seek to use a Tesla truck as a target set,' Adams told Fortune. 'At another level, I find it symbolic of an evolving relationship between, in general, the high-tech sector and the Department of Defense.'
'I have no doubt that this is something of the camel's nose under the tent with respect to the relationship between DOD and [Tesla CEO] Elon Musk and his businesses, of which there are many connections,' he added.
The Air Force and Tesla did not respond to Fortune's requests for comment.
Indeed, the Air Force's interest in Cybertrucks is far from the first time the U.S. Department of Defense has taken an interest in one of Musk's projects. His companies have received billions of dollars in government contracts, including $22 billion in deals with SpaceX to provide launch services to the Pentagon, as well as for Starlink to provide satellite-based connectivity to the Defense Department in certain remote locations and support for military operations in Ukraine.
A 'whole new sector' of militarized tech
Musk's own government contracts are just a slice of the deals the Defense Department is making with tech companies, including the Peter Thiel-founded Palantir, which surpassed $1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time this week, in part thanks to its largest contract to date: a 10-year, $10 billion software deal with the U.S. Army. Last month, OpenAI won a $200 million contract with the Pentagon to use AI capabilities to address security challenges in both 'warfighting and enterprise domains,' the Defense Department said.
The Pentagon's contracts with the private sector make up more than half of the government's total contracts, swelling in fiscal 2024 to $445 billion out of $755 billion in obligations, according to Government Accountability Office data.
The floodgates of military funding for private tech opened about 10 years ago, when the Obama administration pushed for initiatives between the Pentagon and private sector, including a 'people bridge' encouraging tech sector innovators to temporarily work on projects at the Department of Defense.
Previously, private tech companies eschewed work with the government, believing it too bureaucratic and not profitable enough, Adams said. But after years of wooing Silicon Valley, the Defense Department's interest became requited, with companies like Amazon seeing opportunities to replace the government's hodge-podge data centers with cloud computing, for which the Pentagon was offering a $10 billion contract prize in 2019.
Under the Trump administration, these relationships have only deepened. The president's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' contains a $150 billion bump in defense spending, a mouthwatering prospect for several agencies within the Defense Department actively testing use cases for AI tools from tech giants like Meta, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral, as well as from startups like Gladstone AI and ScaleAI, Fortune reported last year.
The enmeshing of Big Tech and the Pentagon is unlikely to unravel any time soon as the ballooning demand from the military for innovative technology creates a 'whole new sector,' Adams said.
'We're going full-bore into the privatization of technology through the Defense Department using the high tech capabilities of companies like Apple and Microsoft, Palantir and other contractors, including, Elon Musk's operations. So it's a process which is very much now out of control,' he added.
'If you wanted to put the brakes on technology developments and take a close look at them under this political situation—the distribution of power between Republicans and Democrats—that's really not going to happen. The door is pretty open to the interpenetration of high tech and the Defense Department.'
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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