Washington is bracing for a major Pentagon overhaul as tech billionaires wait in the wings for President-elect Donald Trump to take office.
And it’s full speed ahead from there in typical Silicon Valley form with billionaire executives preparing to revamp the country’s largest federal agency, Politico reported.
Trump has already offered the number-two Pentagon job to billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg, and others in the startup world are being considered for other Pentagon positions, according to the report.
“A lot of us are hoping there’s a revolution coming…where we hold the bureaucracy accountable, where we shock the bureaucracy,” entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale, founder of software company Palantir, said at a recent defense forum, according to Politico.
If they’re successful, the report added, “the long-frustrated kings of the Valley who bristle at the doddering pace of Pentagon decision-making could force real change in the building — and benefit themselves while trying.”
ALSO READ: The Medicare Advantage trap: What they don’t tell you
Tasks on the table for the tech execs include “building weapons faster, fixing a broken shipbuilding system and matching China’s tech prowess,” Politico reported.
Like Trump pal Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and SpaceX, the executives already named to Pentagon posts, or who are in the running, “all have investments and stakes in multiple companies working with the Pentagon and will need to determine how they detangle a web of potential conflicts of interest,” the report said.
But, it pointed out that significant changes to the inner workings of the Pentagon “won’t come at the commercial tech industry’s breakneck pace.”
“This is especially true of a sprawling bureaucracy built on institutional practice,” according to the report, which added that many generals and other Pentagon leaders are “cautious about moving too fast to alter weapons.”
The report said that several billionaires favor replacing the F-35 fighter jet and Abrams tank with drones, but noted that "such a move would upend tens of billions of dollars in contracts not only in the U.S., but with dozens of close allies.
