On June 13, 2025, four executives from some of the world’s largest technology companies donned the uniform of the United States Army at Myer-Henderson Barracks, a ten-minute drive from the Pentagon. After taking the oath, They were appointed lieutenant colonels of the Reserve. The appointment was controversial, but it was made on the occasion of the launch of Detachment 201, a very special army body dedicated exclusively to military innovation.
Technological military with a wink. The four new reserve lieutenant colonels are Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir, Andrew Bosworth, CTO of Meta, Kevin Weil, CPO of OpenAI and Bob McGrew, advisor to Thinking Machines Labs (Mira Murati’s startup) and former head of research at OpenAI. The name of Detachment 201 is a wink to Silicon Valley, because an HTTP 201 status code on the web means that a resource was successfully created. All four will continue in their current positions while serving as reservists.
Sankar’s thesis. Palantir’s CTO has already become a reference in the discourse on how to apply technology to military institutions after publishing on its website 18theses.com the document “Defense reform”. In it he talked about how “warriors fight with weapons and with git.” He criticized the Department of Defense (DoD) for treating technology as “expensive and unaffordable,” and proposed using AI to make military assets work more efficiently and quickly.
The germ. The project was conceived by Brynt Oameter, who was responsible for talent management at the Pentagon. His idea was to attract technology experts so that they could take up positions in the Army when necessary. He met Sankar at a conference in early 2024 and began discussing the idea, which ended up crystallizing into a project that Donald Trump promoted.
Finger designations. A curiosity: among that group of chosen ones there were no Anthropic executives even though the company was the one that ended up being the chosen one in July 2025 to integrate its AI model, Claude, into Pentagon systems. Then, how do we know, things changed. On Wired they explain how Sankar was the one who volunteered to be part of the project, but also recommended the three people who would end up forming that group with him.
What will these four managers do in the Army?. The official mission of these experts is to integrate specialized knowledge in AI, software and data analysis into the Pentagon’s strategy. parameter gave an example: The commander of the Indo-Pacific region is evaluating threats in the Far East for the next ten years and has asked Detachment 201 to explain how AI can affect security in that context. These new lieutenant colonels can also operate more tactically, advising on how soldiers can use the new tools at their disposal. Or what is the same: they will act as consultants to the US Army, but in uniform and having taken the oath, something important because the relationship with the soldiers changes.
The inevitable conflict of interest. The Army affirms that there is no conflict of interest because the members of Detachment 201 will not have a vote in the contracts signed with the private sector. The chronology of events tells us otherwise, however:
- A month before Bosworth took office, Meta announced an agreement with Anduril to develop military augmented reality products.
- A few months before OpenAI announced an alliance with Anduril in air defense systems.
- Palantir, Sankar’s company, signed a contract with the Army worth 480 million dollars in December 2024.
That doesn’t prove anything, but suspicions are inevitable, because even if they don’t have a vote, they will be able to obtain internal knowledge and data that inevitably benefits their employer companies.
But weren’t there going to be limits on AI in the army? Another of the thorny questions that arise from this Detachment 201 is how the recommendations of these experts will be applied on the battlefield. OpenAI theoretically has policies prohibiting its AI models from causing harm or developing military weaponry. However, the explicit mission of this body is to make the US Army be “more lethal”. That contradicts OpenAI statementswhich after allying itself with the Pentagon recently stressed again and again that its models would be used within limits… which is exactly why the Pentagon ended up wanting to turn Anthropic into a pariah company.
Two weeks to get the rank. A conventional lieutenant colonel reaches that rank after between fifteen and twenty years of active military career. The members of Detachment 201 received that same rank after two weeks of partially online training that included physical conditioning, shooting as a diagnosis and basic notions of military protocol such as the rank structure and the use of the uniform. They did not complete basic training and have the flexibility to fulfill part of their 120 annual hours of service from home, something not offered to other reservists. All of this has generated reviews within the Army and also comments of all kinds on social networks.
Image | DVIDS
In Xataka | Anthropic and OpenAI have developed AI. The US Pentagon is showing you who really owns it
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