Tech entrepreneurs reshape U.S. warfighting by funding and selling private weapons

In "Valley of Death," veteran security reporter Sharon Weinberger chronicles the convergence of big tech and defense, beginning with Elon Musk’s 2008 Falcon 1 launch that proved private rockets could reach orbit. She argues that a new wave of entrepreneurs—Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Palmer Luckey, Horacio Rozanski, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Ethan Thornton and others—have sidestepped the Pentagon’s slow acquisition process by self-funding weapons and software, then selling or leasing them to the military.

By 2025, venture capital poured $50 billion into defense-tech startups, inflating their valuations far beyond those of traditional prime contractors such as Lockheed Martin or Boeing. The narrative examines controversial moments, including Musk’s selective provision of Starlink to Ukraine and the Pentagon’s decision to blacklist Anthropic in favor of OpenAI. Weinberger also notes historical gaps, such as the 1970 creation of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy, and points to the growing leverage these firms hold over critical warfighting technologies.