Air Force offer for Tesla Cybertrucks in Target Practice symbolizes the “evolving” relationship between the Pentagon and Big Tech, known as an expert

The US Air Force Material Command, which is part of the Ministry of Defense, seeks to acquire two cybertrucks “for testing events in flight of target vehicles”, according to documents deposited on Wednesday at the price management system. The Air Force also searches 31 other vehicles, including sedans and bongo trucks, for an equally likely use as a missile target. Enemies can “probably” go to the use of vehicles such as cybertrucks, which are more resistant to certain types of damage, depending on deposits.

“Tests must reflect real world situations,” said a document. “The intention of the training is to prepare the operations units by simulating the scenarios as closely as possible for the real situations of the world.”

Citing market studies carried out in February by an expected source, a document said that Tesla Cybertrucks is specifically provided in this type of battlefield test because of its “active and futuristic actual conception, associated with its non -painted stainless steel exoskeleton”, which differentiates it from other models. Vehicles do not need to be fully operational, but rather to be intact and move on their wheels, depending on the document.

According to Gordon Adams, professor of American foreign policy at the American university who is researching defense spending, the Air Force decision to continue Tesla vehicles for the training on the battlefield is, isolated, with little consequences, but it indicates the growing links between the technology of the American military and private sector.

“At a level, I do not see it also very unusual so that they seek to use a Tesla truck as a target set,” said Adams Fortune. “On another level, I find it symbolic of an evolving relationship between, in general, the high -tech sector and the Ministry of Defense.”

“I have no doubt that it is something of the nose of the camel under the tent with regard to the relationship between DOD and (CEO of Tesla) Elon Musk and its companies, of which there are many connections,” he added.

Air Force and Tesla did not respond to FortuneComment requests.

Indeed, Air Force’s interest in cybertrucks is far from the first time that the US Department of Defense has been interested in one of Musk’s projects. Its companies have received billions of dollars in government contracts, including $ 22 billion in transactions with SpaceX to provide Pentagon launch services, as well as Starlink to provide satellite connectivity to the Ministry of Defense in certain distant places and support for military operations in Ukraine.

A “new sector” of militarized technology

Musk’s own government contracts are only a group of agreements that the Ministry of Defense concludes with technological companies, including the Palantant based on Peter Thiel, who exceeded $ 1 billion in quarterly income for the first time this week, partly thanks to his greatest contract to date: software of 10 billion dollars of 10 years with the American army. Last month, Openai won a $ 200 million contract with the Pentagon to use AI capabilities to meet the security challenges in “war areas and corporate areas,” said the Ministry of Defense.

Pentagon contracts with the private sector represent more than half of the total government contracts, inflating during the financial year 2024 to $ 445 billion out of $ 755 billion in bonds, according to data from the Government Accountability Office.

Military funding for private technology opened around 10 years ago, when the Obama administration prompted initiatives between Pentagon and the private sector, including a “bridge people” encouraging technology innovators to work temporarily on projects at the Ministry of Defense.

Previously, private technological companies have avoided work with the government, the believer too bureaucratic and not profitable enough, said Adams. But after years to court Silicon Valley, the interests of the Ministry of Defense have become required, with companies like Amazon seeing opportunities to replace the Hodge-Podge Data Centers by the Cloud Computing, for which the Pentagon offered a contract of $ 10 billion in 2019.

Under the Trump administration, these relations only have deepened. The president’s “Big and Beautiful Bill” contains a bump of $ 150 billion in defense expenses, an enticing perspective for several agencies within the Ministry of Defense actively testing use cases for technology giants like Meta, Google, Openai, Anthropic and Mistral, as well as startups like Gladstone Ai and Scaleai, Fortune reported last year.

It is unlikely that the implementation of Big Tech and the Pentagon will get out of the army balloon for an innovative technology created an “brand new sector,” said Adams.

“We are going in its own right in the privatization of technology through the Ministry of Defense using high-tech business capabilities like Apple and Microsoft, Palant and other entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk operations. It is therefore a process that is now out of control,” he added.

“If you wanted to put the brakes on technological developments and examine them closely in this political situation – the distribution of power between the Republicans and the Democrats – this will not really happen. The door is quite open to the interpenetration of high technology and the Ministry of Defense. ”