nuclear-news

The defense revolving-door, Silicon Valley edition

he Trump administration has installed a revolving door between defense-tech companies and the Pentagon.

An eye-opening glimpse at the links between two congressional committees and more than 100 defense contractors, consultants, and lobbyists.

By John Mecklin, August 17, 2026, https://thebulletin.org/2026/08/the-defense-revolving-door-silicon-valley-edition/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=The%20defense%20revolving-door%2C%20Silicon%20Valley%20edition&utm_campaign=20260817%20Monday%20Newsletter%20%28Copy%29

ince President Eisenhower more-or-less invented the term military-industrial complex, US defense spending has grown, dramatically in some eras, leveling off a bit in others, but overall heading ever-upward. Annual US defense expenditures now approach $1 trillion—and, if the Trump administration gets its way, will head toward $1.5 trillion in the coming fiscal year. A variety of factors has driven this rise in defense outlays, but one has become persistent: the revolving door that some national service officials walk through to take well-compensated positions at private-sector military contractors and the firms that lobby the government on their behalf.

The phenomenon and its corruptive possibilities have been much-studied and widely criticized. US Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the noted progressive, commissioned a report on the issue in 2023 with the withering title “Pentagon Alchemy: How Defense Officials Pass rough the Revolving Door and Peddle Brass for Gold.” The libertarian-to-conservative Cato Institute writes less compelling headlines (“Dealing with the Defense Industry’s Revolving Door in the 2027 NDAA”) but doesn’t like the revolving door, either. And in its 2023 report, “March of the Four–Stars: The Role of Retired Generals and Admirals in the Arms Industry,” the heterodox Quincy Institute basically supports Warren’s attempt to at least slow the revolving door via the “Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act.” Warren initially introduced the bill in 2019 and reintroduced it in 2021 and 2023, to no avail.

The interactive display below [on original] illustrates one piece of the defense revolving door as it has evolved over the last decade. During that time, former congressional officials have strolled through the door and wound up working not just at the largest defense contractors (often called “primes”) but also for a new class of high-technology firms—often involved in artificial intelligence and headquartered in Silicon Valley—that has aggressively expanded its Pentagon contracting efforts. And to be clear, the door leads in both directions; private sector bigwigs sometimes move into influential government positions that could affect the fortunes of their companies.

As UC Berkeley investigative reporter Bernice Yeung recently wrote for the Bulletin:

[T]he Trump administration has installed a revolving door between defense-tech companies and the Pentagon. The deputy secretary of defense, Steve Feinberg, is the cofounder and former CEO of a private equity firm that invests heavily in companies with Pentagon contracts. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology co-chair David Sacks is a venture capitalist who invests in defense tech. The country’s science and technology advisor, Michael Kratsios, was previously an executive at top AI defense firm, Scale AI. The armed services are also stacked with senior leaders with ties to the tech industry, such as Under Secretary of the Army Michael Obadal, an Anduril alum.

The interactive is anything but comprehensive. It looks only at members of Congress who served and top staffers who worked on the House and Senate armed services committees during the 2015-2025 decade. The graphic does not deal with defense-related political contributions, or with the many employees of the Pentagon, military services, State Department, and Energy Department who also rode the revolving door connecting government service to high-paying positions with defense contractors and the K Street firms that lobby for them. The interactive simply shows some of the ways in which the two congressional committees that deal with the country’s armed services are connected with private-sector defense contractors, consultants, and lobbyists. Even within this limited scope, the connections are eye-opening.

August 24, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war