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A.I. Joe

Tech executives pivot to war

Tech execs are cozying up to the military industrial complex, seeking partnerships, contracts, and now actual military commissions.

Jon Keegan

6/23/25 3:12PM

Tech executives tend to have their fads: fasting, cold plunges, and vampiric transfusions of youthful blood are life hacks that have become popular within the C-suites of the Silicon Valley crowd. But now a new trend is gripping the tech bro set: straight-up war.

In the twilight of the Biden administration, the White House signaled it was down to clown with AI companies for national security applications.

Tech companies wasted no time lining up for juicy defense partnerships and contracts. Meta offered up use of its Llama models for national security use, followed by Anthropic partnering with Palantir to use its Claude models on the battlefield.

It wasn’t that long ago that OpenAI prohibited the use of its products for “activity that has high risk of physical harm, including: Weapons development; Military and warfare,” only to quietly remove such language in January 2024. By the end of last year, OpenAI was announcing a deal with defense contractor Anduril to use its models to identify airborne threats.

Earlier this month, OpenAI announced its first one-year $200 million contract with the Department of Defense, which described the work as a contract to “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains.”

And the pivot to fighting is not just vague military contracts. It also includes prominent tech executives directly investing in weapons manufacturers and actually becoming active-duty members of the US Army:

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is investing in German drone company Helsing, with his Prima Materia venture capital firm leading the $700 million investment round.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth is joining the US Army’s new “Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps” as an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, along with...
...OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil...
...Palantir’s CTO, Shyam Sankar...
...and Bob McGrew, former chief research officer at OpenAI.

Of course, former government employee Elon Musk’s SpaceX has long been one of the most visible defense contractors, receiving over $4 billion in launch contracts from the Department of Defense, assuming President Trump doesn’t cancel the contracts in a fit of pique.

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Apple’s China iPhone shipments surged 20% in Q1 even as overall smartphone shipments fell

Apple’s iPhone shipments in China jumped 20% last quarter, even as the country’s overall smartphone market fell 4%, according to new data from Counterpoint Research. Rising memory costs have pushed prices higher across the industry, weighing on demand.

Apple appears poised to ride out the broader smartphone slump. Its strength at the less price-sensitive high end of the market and its unusual leverage over suppliers, which helps keep costs in check, give it an edge over rivals.

Greater China remains a critical region for Apple, making up about 18% of its total revenue in the fourth quarter. The company accounted for 19% of China’s smartphone market in the first quarter, up from 15% a year earlier, per Counterpoint.

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Anthropic has surged past OpenAI in capturing business spending on generative-AI software

Last quarter, Anthropic attracted the lion’s share of trackable business spending on generative-AI software, according to new data from Ramp, a fintech company that provides corporate cards and expense management software for small firms and Fortune 500 companies alike.

The data showed that in the first quarter, Anthropic saw 37% of spending, its biggest share yet, versus 33% for OpenAI. Notably, the dataset doesn’t capture spending by Google or Microsoft.

OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, still leads in overall adoption at 81% of AI buyers, but Anthropic is catching up, at nearly 63% in March. Overall, more than half of Ramp’s customers currently pay for AI, up from just 18% two years ago.

Anthropic’s enterprise tools, including Claude Code and Cowork, have been making waves among the business class, sending its revenue soaring.

Anthropic’s revenue share is even higher among companies spending on AI for the first time.

“Anthropic has definitely been on a tear,” Ara Kharazian, Ramp’s economist, told Sherwood News. “Its increase in adoption rates has been driven by its ability to sell to less technical users and smaller contracts than it typically has.”

It’s notable that midway through the first quarter, Anthropic had a falling-out with one of its biggest customers, the US government, which near the end of February decided to shun Anthropic’s products and lean into working with OpenAI.

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Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.7, with better coding, better vision, and occasional doom loops

The incremental update of Anthropic’s most capable public model includes steady improvements to coding and new ways to blow past your token budget.

Tunnel. Optical illusion. Abstract striped background. Vector illustration.

Jon Keegan4/16/26

Report: Google ditches its objection to defense work, pitches Gemini to Pentagon

In 2018, Google employees protested against the company’s tech being used for the US military’s Project Maven — a drone targeting program — reminding the company of its “don’t be evil” motto.

After the controversy, the company declined to renew the contract with the Pentagon, drawing a bright line between Big Tech and the national security establishment.

What a difference a few years makes.

Google is now actively working to get its Gemini AI model to be used in classified national security settings, according to a new report from The Information. Seeking a similar deal to the one OpenAI hashed out with the Pentagon, Google reportedly wants a contract that allows use of Gemini in classified work, but with a prohibition on mass domestic surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons.

But Google is playing catch-up in a major way. Amazon and Microsoft both have been widely used for classified defense work, and contractors are already experienced in working with their cloud systems, while Google’s services have never been used in classified work.

Google and Pentagon Discuss Classified AI Deal as Company Rebuilds Military Ties

What a difference a few years makes.

1 in 5

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We knew Tesla had been off-loading its struggling “apocalypse-proof” Cybertrucks onto CEO Elon Musk’s other companies, but now we know just how many.

The EV company sold about one in five Cybertrucks registered in the US in the fourth quarter to Musk’s other ventures, according to Bloomberg, citing data from S&P Global Mobility. The lion’s share went to SpaceX, which accounted for 1,279 of the 7,071 total registrations, while another 60 went to xAI (now part of SpaceX), Neuralink, and The Boring Company. All told, these inter-company sales represent roughly $100 million in value, and a vital lifeline for a vehicle that has failed to gain traction with the public, forcing Tesla to scale back production.

Musk’s companies have continued to scoop up the stainless steel behemoths this year, with another 158 Cybertruck purchases in January and 67 in February.

Tech executives pivot to war

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Apple’s China iPhone shipments surged 20% in Q1 even as overall smartphone shipments fell

Anthropic has surged past OpenAI in capturing business spending on generative-AI software

Report: Google ditches its objection to defense work, pitches Gemini to Pentagon

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