WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a highly unusual move, the U.S. Army last month commissioned four tech executives as Army Reserve lieutenant colonels and tasked them with advising on defense matters, despite their lack of military experience and ongoing senior roles at companies with lucrative Pentagon contracts. Today, Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF) sent a letter to the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (OIG) formally urging an investigation into whether the appointments violate federal conflict of interest laws.

The four executives work for leading artificial intelligence companies (Meta, Palantir, OpenAI, and Thinking Machines Labs) and will serve as part-time lieutenant colonel advisors in a newly created unit called Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps. According to the Army, the Corps is intended to “guide rapid and scalable tech solutions” for a “leaner, smarter, and more lethal” force, including contributions to the Army Transformation Initiative and the use of AI in battlefield operations.

”These newly minted lieutenant colonels are not career military personnel, they are executives with deep financial ties to companies actively profiting from or pursuing massive Pentagon contracts,” said Virginia Canter, chief counsel for ethics and anti-corruption at DDF. “In fact, none appear to have prior military experience. What they do have is a significant financial stake in Pentagon decisions related to AI. This raises serious questions about conflicts of interest and the erosion of long-standing ethics protections meant to keep government decisions impartial and in the public interest.”

Among those appointed to the Executive Innovation Corps are Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth and Palantir’s Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar. Sankar reportedly holds stock and options worth over $200 million. Bosworth is reported to have earned more than $23 million in 2024, much of it tied to Meta’s financial performance. The other execs are Kevin Weil, OpenAI's chief product officer, and Bob McGrew, advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former chief research officer at OpenAI. There’s nothing to suggest any of these individuals intend to divest from their companies in light of their new appointments.

All four companies are deeply embedded in current defense work. Palantir has received more than $1 billion in defense contracts. Meta is developing military-grade augmented reality tools. OpenAI recently signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon to provide “frontier AI” capabilities.

“The blending of corporate financial interests with military authority is dangerous,” said Christopher Swartz, senior ethics counsel at DDF. “It risks turning national security into a profit center for a handful of tech elites. These tech executives are not disinterested public servants. They are financially and professionally invested in their companies’ success with the military.”

DDF is urging the OIG to examine whether any ethics reviews, recusals, or conflict-of-interest waivers were conducted, and whether the structure of the Innovation Corps complies with federal law. DDF’s letter to the OIG warns that if the appointments stand without scrutiny, they could set a precedent for allowing corporations to embed their executives directly into the government to gain influence over spending, strategy, and policy while retaining financial interest in the outcome.

“Americans expect our armed forces to serve the nation, not Silicon Valley shareholders,” Canter said. “The OIG must act quickly and decisively to investigate this troubling entanglement of public power and potential private gain. Americans deserve to know that national security decisions are being made in the public’s interest, not to benefit a CEO’s stock portfolio.”

Read Democracy Defenders Fund’s full letter to the OIG.