What Lt. Col. Boz and Big Tech's Enlisted Execs Will Do in the Army
Jun 20, 2025 10:26 AM Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth and leaders from OpenAI and Palantir have joined a detachment intended to make the US Armed Forces "force leaner, smarter, and more lethal." OpenAI's product head, Kevin Weil, and Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth. Photo-Illustration:When I read a tweet about four noted Silicon Valley executives being inducted into a special detachment of the United States Army Reserve, including Meta CTO Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, I questioned its veracity. It's very hard to discern truth from satire in 2025, in part because of social media sites owned by Bosworth's company. But it indeed was true. According to an official press release, they're in the Army now, specifically Detachment 201: the Executive Innovation Corps. Boz is now Lieutenant Colonel Bosworth.
The other newly commissioned officers include Kevin Weil, OpenAI's head of product; Bob McGrew, a former OpenAI head of research now advising Mira Murati's company Thinking Machines Lab; and Shyam Sankar, the CTO of Palantir. These middle-aged tech execs were sworn into their posts wearing camo fatigues, as if they just wandered off some Army base in Kandahar, to join a corps that is named after an HTTP status code. (Colonel David Butler, communications adviser to the Army chief of staff, told me their dress uniforms weren't ready yet.) Detachment 201, wrote the Army in a press release, is part of a military-wide transformation initiative that 'aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal.'
The Army's Executive Innovation Corps (EIC) commissioning ceremony in Conmy Hall, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va., June 13, 2025. Photograph: Leroy Council/DVIDS
Don't blame Donald Trump for this. The program has been in the works for over a year, the brainchild of Brynt Parmeter, the Pentagon's first chief talent management officer. Parmeter, a former combat soldier who headed veteran support at Walmart before joining the Department of Defense in 2023, had been pondering how to bring experienced technologists into service to update an insufficiently tech-savvy militia when he met Sankar at a conference early last year. The idea, he says, was to create 'an Oppenheimer-like situation' where senior executives could serve right away, while keeping their current jobs. Both men collaborated on a plan to bring in people like, well, Sankar, who has been a vocal cheerleader of the Valley's recent embrace of the military, proclaiming that the US is in an 'undeclared state of emergency' that requires a tech-led military rehaul. When the Wall Street Journal wrote about the forthcoming program last October, Sankar vowed to be 'first in line.' In a sign that it's no longer taboo in the Valley to face the fact that its creations go hand in hand with boosting deadly force in the military, the program was fast-tracked and is now in operation. 'Ten years ago this probably would have gotten me canceled,' Weil told me. 'It's a much better state of the world where people look at this and go, 'Oh, wow, this is important. Freedom is not free.''
This is an essay from the latest edition of Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter.
SIGN UP for Plaintext to read the whole thing, and tap Steven's unique insights and unmatched contacts for the long view on tech.
The four new officers are full members of the Army Reserve. Unlike other reservists, however, they will not be required to undergo basic training, though they will undergo less immersive fitness and shooting training after induction. They will also have the flexibility to spend some of the approximately 120 annual hours working remotely, a perk not offered to other reservists. The Army also says that these men will not be sent to battle, so they will not be risking their lives in potential theaters of war in Iran, Greenland, or downtown Los Angeles, California. Their mission is to use their undeniable expertise to school their colleagues and superiors in the military on how to utilize cutting-edge technologies for efficiency and deadly force.
One might assume the Army would have done an extensive study of the specific talents required for this pilot program and pulled those people from an open call for the best candidates. That did not happen. Sankar helped recruit the other three future officers—all male, which by intention or coincidence seems to satisfy the anti-DEI bent of today's military—and they all accepted. According to Butler, 'Lieutenant Colonel Sankar said 'I want to wear the uniform. And I have three other guys willing to go with me.'' Weil confirms that he joined after a request from Sankar. (Parmeter said to me that since this is a pilot program with an unknown outcome, a closed process was appropriate.)
Clearly, the four new officers genuinely want to serve their country. Weil, who I've known for years, told me that when Sankar explained the program, 'I was just like, 'Yes, I want to help—that sounds amazing.'' But during a wave of widespread unease over privileges of tech elite—did you see those disgusting billionaire bros on that show Mountainhead ?—special arrangements for well-off digital achievers seems tone-deaf.
My big question is whether these men could have provided the same assistance from the private sector. Parmeter and Butler both cited precedent of cases where top executives were directly commissioned, including a top railway executive in 1917, the head of a gas and electric company in 1944, and the General Motors Company president in 1942. But those were full-time roles during world wars. Parmeter also reminded me that many currently serving reservists are already in the tech industry, including, he claimed, some generals at Google(!). Presumably none of them, however, began their military careers as senior officers, and they presumably do not receive special dispensation to perform some of their service from home. Another program, the Defense Digital Service, gives tech workers a chance to lend expertise to the Pentagon full time for up to two years. What's more, Parmeter conceded that the military already has a trusted adviser program, where civilians could work part or full time on projects. "That's obviously still going on, and that's something that is useful,' he says. 'But in this case, we wanted to go beyond that.'
The Army says that there is no conflict of interest in having these privately employed officers provide advice on high-tech subjects. They will have no say in what contracts the Army makes with the private sector. The expertise they offer, however, seems inseparable from the sectors of AI, VR, and data mining at the center of their companies' business models. Maybe it's just bad timing, but the month before Bosworth was sworn in, Meta announced a deal with Anduril, a defense contractor co-founded by former fired employee Palmer Luckey, to pursue military contracts. Around the time Lt Col Weil raised a hand beside Boz, OpenAI announced a $200 million defense contract: it's also working with Anduril to develop an air defense system. Sankar's employer Palantir has billions of dollars worth of government deals, including a $759 million Army contract for advanced AI systems. (Thinking Machines Lab, which McGrew advises, is still in semi-stealth, so there's no news of its plans for military contracts.) Also, while these soldiers are serving in a personal capacity, their employers will undoubtedly benefit from the inside-the-perimeter knowledge that they will gather while simultaneously working on military contracts.
Lieutenant Kevin Weil, OpenAI's head of product and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy A. George Photograph: Leroy Council/DVIDS
OK, so what will they do ? Parmeter provides a hypothetical scenario: the commander of the Indo-Pacific region is figuring out how to address threats in the Far East over the next five to 10 years. They might ask Detachment 201 to tell them how the future state of machine learning and AI would affect security in that context. Or, the new officers might operate more tactically, advising how soldiers could use new tools to understand battlefield conditions. This kind of sounds like… consulting. Weil argues, however, that advice coming from an actual officer would be more seriously heeded: 'There's nothing wrong with being a contractor,' he says. 'But if we're off supporting an exercise somewhere, it's different that we're wearing the same uniform, having taken the same oath.'
A more serious consequence might come from these men having dual loyalty when setting policy at their private companies. Companies like Meta, Open AI, and Thinking Machines Lab are helping create superintelligence that could profoundly impact the world. OpenAI is among those companies that prohibit their models from being used to harm others, and that includes developing weapons. But the mission of the US military is exactly the opposite. Working inside the Army, these recruits are explicitly charged with making the technologies more lethal—in fact, in a hearing this very week, Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll told Senators that the Army Transformation Initiative, which involves Detachment 201, will eliminate programs that do not contribute to lethality. Who will these officers be serving when they make those determinations? (Weil emphatically tells me that his service is a personal matter, and in any case there are plenty of uses for AI in the military that don't involve killing.) When I brought this issue up to Parmeter, he said that when determining the direction of future AI at their companies, the officers' wider perspective would be a plus. Then again, Parmeter did mention Oppenheimer, who created the atom bomb.
Bottom line: Sankar, Bosworth, Weil, and McGrew are soldiers now, even if critics are already accusing them of being rich tech bros cosplaying the real thing. Considering the optics, they would do well to avoid any chest-thumping. Weil displayed humility when I spoke to him. But an op-ed Sankar wrote in the Free Press to explain his motives hit a sour note. Though much of it set out the benefits of a private tech industry in sync with the military, and his family's inspiring American immigrant story (which might not have happened under current Trump policies), he veered into self-aggrandizement. 'None of these men need to pad their résumé,' he wrote of his Detachment 201 blood brothers and, by implication, himself. 'None have free time between fatherhood, demanding day jobs, and a dozen other demands. But all feel called to serve.'
Forgive me for thinking that their sacrifices rank in the bottom rung of what the vast majority of soldiers experience. In our conversation,Weil, again, was humble about becoming an instant senior officer, a rank given to reflect his achievements in private life. 'I'm still a little bit sensitive to the title, because there's so many people that have given their lives or spent their lives dedicated to this,' he told me. 'So I want to earn the title.' I have no idea how their Army-mates will regard them, but all who hold lower ranks, including life-long soldiers and veterans of combat, will be required to salute the Detachment 201 lieutenant colonels on sight. According to Butler, these overnight officers haven't yet mastered the art of crisply returning those salutes. 'They've got a bit of work to do,' he told me.
Weil is correct when he says that a decade ago, Silicon Valley would have condemned him for accepting his post. He was working for Facebook as Instagram's head of product during the time that Luckey was tossed out of the company for supporting Donald Trump and lavishingly expressing his fondness for the military. In my book Facebook: The Inside Story I describe how in 2016 Palmer Luckey alienated Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook workforce—by acting like Zuckerberg would act in 2025. All is copesetic now as the two are partners in developing VR technology for today's military.
Luckey was a political conservative, supporting the right wing with the same enthusiasm he devoted to fast food, cosplay photos with his girlfriend, and soldering artisanal computer peripherals. He was a huge admirer of the military. [Brendan] Iribe [cofounder of Oculus] remembers that he once got a call saying Luckey had driven a tank on the Facebook campus. The police had been called. The vehicle was Luckey's Humvee, repurposed from military service with toy machine guns attached to the postings. [The orange-colored guns were clearly not operational.] To Facebook's workers though, it might as well have been a nuclear bomb. Luckey defused the situation and wound up posing for pictures with the cops, but the incident was a black mark on his record. 'Here at Facebook, you can't drive Humvees with guns—military vehicles—onto the lot and have the police show up,' says Iribe. 'That's not what we're focused on here.'
Madhu on Bluesky asks, 'If all of us adopted AI to write our medical clinic notes, how will that impact our carbon footprint?'
Thanks for the question, Madhu. You are correct in implying that AI large language models consume considerable electricity. Writing medical clinic notes probably isn't the biggest worry, though. The actual numbers are fuzzy, maybe intentionally. But according to Nature, for a chatbot to find something, it consumes 23 to 30 times the energy of a Google search. And it's going to get worse.
For instance, consider AI agents, which nearly everyone agrees are the next step for LLMs. I recently learned that compared to simple prompts and outputs, tasks where LLMs essentially query the world to fulfill and verify people's requests have jaw-droppingly higher power demands. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has estimated that reasoning-based agentic AI will require 100 times the computation, and thus the power consumption, of the current paradigm. As you suspect, this will not be great for the environment.
Submit your questions in the comments below, or send an email to mail@wired.com. Write ASK LEVY in the subject line. End Times Chronicle
In a 'Bible Prophecy Update,' Christian commentator Greg Laurie cited 'super signs' in the Middle East that the Last Days may be on track and advised readers to prepare. Last but Not Least
How activists helped Elon Musk pay the price for DOGE-ing the government.
Visiting the United States or returning from a trip abroad? Here's how to protect your information at the border when you return.
A bulked-up visit to the Steroid Olympics.
Former WIRED editor Megan Greenwell talks about her book on private equity. She's not a fan.
Don't miss future subscriber-only editions of this column. Subscribe to WIRED (50% off for Plaintext readers) today.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Federal Express founder Fred Smith dies aged 80
Fred Smith, founder of the US parcel delivery giant Federal Express, has died at the age of 80, the company has announced. Mr Smith founded the firm in 1973 having previously served in the US Marine Corps. He ran the company as CEO until 2022. "Fred was more than just the pioneer of an industry and the founder of our great company. He was the heart and soul of FedEx," current boss Raj Subramaniam wrote in a memo to staff. Born in 1944, Mr Smith started FedEx with 389 staff and 14 small planes that carried 186 packages from Memphis to 25 cities within the US. "He was a mentor to many and a source of inspiration to all. He was also a proud father, grandfather, husband, Marine, and friend," Mr Subramaniam said. FedEx now has more than 500,000 employees across the globe and delivers millions of packages a day. Its operations involve 705 aircraft and 200,000 vehicles, according to its website.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Debunking the Myth: Is the U.S. Dollar About to Collapse?
The U.S. dollar has been the world's primary reserve currency since the end of World War II. Despite viral stories proclaiming that countries in the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are ditching the dollar, experts aren't too concerned — at least not in the near term. In fact, talk of a world without the U.S. dollar is largely considered a hype-driven myth. Read More: Find Out: So, what makes the U.S. dollar unlikely to collapse anytime soon? Here's what the experts say. While it's unlikely that the U.S. dollar will implode overnight, there are reasons why so many people are concerned. 'Typically, currencies follow interest rate differentials — when bond yields go up, the local currency gets stronger. But in the case of the U.S. dollar, it's been behaving like an emerging market currency: higher bond yields, weaker equities, and a falling currency,' said Christopher Vecchio, global co-head of macro at Tastylive. 'So it's concerning, particularly in [the] context of this relationship unfolding with the Trump tariffs.' Some sources indicate that President Trump could be undermining the U.S. dollar's position as the global reserve currency. In particular, talk about imposing steep tariffs on the country's international trading partners has had a notable impact on the U.S. and global stock markets. Depending on how things play out, there could be a threat to the dollar's current status. Discover Next: Other experts agree that the U.S. dollar is unlikely to be on the verge of collapse. Much of this is due to its resilience in the world financial system. 'It serves as the world's primary reserve currency, is central to international trade, and is widely held by central banks around the world,' said Joshua Charles, CEO and founder at Frontier Dominion. 'This foundational role provides the dollar with considerable stability, even when domestic fiscal policy is under strain. Many other currencies lack the same level of trust due to issues like limited export diversity, underdeveloped capital markets, or inconsistent fiscal management.' Charles noted that social media, alternative investment advocates, and financial influencers have largely added to the myth that the dollar is about to collapse. It's still important to keep aware of the current issues, like political gridlock and mounting U.S. debt, though. The U.S. dollar could weaken over time, but the idea that it's at the end of its line is still largely based on hype. Right now, the majority of global commerce runs on the U.S. dollar. Last year, nearly half (48%) of all global payments on SWIFT were made in USD. That's up from the 45% it was 10 years ago. 'But here's the rub: the reason why so many other countries use U.S. dollars is because they need to recycle them from America's trade with each country. Trade deficits for the U.S. are surpluses elsewhere, and those surpluses are recycled into USD-denominated assets,' said Vecchio. Things could change, but not right now. 'One can surmise that if the U.S. is reordering the global trade system to, well, trade less with the rest of the world, then the U.S. dollar may no longer be as desirable in time — but that would be a long way off in the future,' said Vecchio. More From GOBankingRates Mark Cuban Warns of 'Red Rural Recession' -- 4 States That Could Get Hit Hard 10 Cars That Outlast the Average Vehicle Mark Cuban Tells Americans To Stock Up on Consumables as Trump's Tariffs Hit -- Here's What To Buy This article originally appeared on Debunking the Myth: Is the U.S. Dollar About to Collapse?
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Which 3 Tech Giants Could Cross the $3 Trillion Mark Next?
Amazon has a clear path toward a $3 trillion market cap through its cloud computing growth and AI investments. While it faces some obstacles, Alphabet has the right collection of businesses to hit $3 trillion in the next few years. The combination of AI and serving ads on WhatsApp and Threads should help drive Meta Platforms to a $3 trillion market cap in the coming years. 10 stocks we like better than Amazon › While not all have stayed there, there have been three tech giants that have crossed the $3 trillion market cap threshold: Microsoft, Nvidia, and Apple. The more compelling question now is: which companies are best positioned to be the next to join the $3 trillion club? In my view, the most likely candidates are Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG), and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META). Let's take a closer look at these three stocks and see what it will take for them to get there. With nearly a $2.3 trillion market cap, Amazon is the closest company to join the $3 trillion club. It would need to see its stock price rise by about 33% to reach this exclusive club. The probability of this happening in the next few years looks promising. The company is the market leader in two important fields: cloud computing and e-commerce. Its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is its largest business by profitability. It's also its fastest-growing segment, with revenue jumping 17% last quarter. AWS is benefiting from the trend in artificial intelligence (AI) in two main ways. One is that customers are flocking to use its services, such as Bedrock and Sagemaker, to help customize, build, and deploy AI models and apps. They are then running them on its data center infrastructure, leading to a nice recurring revenue stream. Amazon has also developed its own custom AI chips through an in-house subsidiary, which helps give it a cost advantage. With the company investing heavily in AI infrastructure to keep up with demand, this is a nice advantage. Amazon's e-commerce business, meanwhile, is a solid high single-digit to low double-digit revenue grower. However, the company is using AI to help make both its logistics and warehouse operations more efficient, which is leading to lower costs and increased profitability in this segment. It is also using AI to help power its high-margin sponsored ad business, which has become the fastest-growing part of its e-commerce segment. With Amazon's stock trading at one of the more attractive valuations in its history, the path to hitting $3 trillion over the next few years looks pretty clear, barring a big recession. Not trailing far behind Amazon in market cap is Alphabet at just over $2.1 trillion. To reach $3 trillion, the stock would have to rise a little more than 42% from current levels. While I think the likelihood of this happening in the next few years is high, the company admittedly has some obstacles as well. The biggest hurdle to Alphabet reaching a $3 trillion market cap would be if the company faced harsh penalties from its antitrust trial, such as having to sell off its Chrome browser or Android smartphone operating systems or even being forced to break up. However, it does appear that U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta is leaning more toward lighter penalties, given the rise of AI competition. Therein lies the other risk for Alphabet, with new competition coming from AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Grok, as well as AI-powered search engines from companies like PerplexityAI. Investors are worried about the impact that AI will have on Google's search dominance, and there is certainly a shift occurring. However, Google does have a couple of nice advantages. First, it has strong distribution through Chrome and Android, as well as deals to be the default search engine on Apple devices and other browsers. Second, Alphabet has spent decades building one of the most expansive ad networks on the planet, which allows it to serve both major brands and small local businesses. Meanwhile, the company is no slouch in AI. Its Gemini model has received strong benchmark scores, and it's been focusing on AI features that will help with monetization, such as virtual outfit try-ons and agentic AI-powered checkout. While many AI start-ups will be struggling to scale and turn a profit, Alphabet is well positioned to turn its AI investments into earnings much sooner. Throw in Alphabet's fast-growing cloud computing business, its emerging Waymo robotaxi business, and leading YouTube streaming platform to go along with one of the cheapest valuations in the mega-cap tech space, and the company has a solid path to joining the $3 trillion market cap club. With a market cap of just under $1.8 trillion, Meta Platforms has the most work to do to get to a $3 trillion market cap. The stock would have to climb about 72% from current levels to join the exclusive club. However, I would not count it out. Meta Platforms was the fastest-growing of the the three companies last quarter, with its revenue jumping 16%. AI is helping power its results, with the company seeing increased user engagement and better ad performance being driven by its proprietary Llama AI model. This, in turn, is leading to more ad inventory and higher prices. Last quarter, ad impressions rose 5%, while ad prices jumped 10%. However, what can really drive Meta's stock forward to that $3 trillion market is new monetization opportunities. Just this month, the company announced it will begin to serve ads on its popular WhatsApp messaging platform. With more than 3 billion monthly users, including more than 100 million in the U.S., these new ads represent a huge opportunity. The ads will appear in the status section of the messaging app and will be visible through the updates tab. In addition, the company is in the midst of building out another social media platform called Threads. The platform is growing quickly and has more than 350 million active monthly users, as last reported. It has also just started to gradually serve ads on Threads, as well. Between more ad inventory, higher ad prices due to improved effectiveness, and Meta just beginning to serve ads on two platforms it hasn't served ads on before, the company has the opportunity to reach the $3 trillion mark in the next few years. Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $664,089!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $881,731!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 994% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Which 3 Tech Giants Could Cross the $3 Trillion Mark Next? was originally published by The Motley Fool
