SpaceX will participate in a new secret Pentagon competition
American billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX company and its wholly owned subsidiary xAI will participate in a closed Pentagon competition to develop voice control technology for autonomous drones. This was reported by Bloomberg sources familiar with the situation.
"Human—machine interaction will directly affect the lethality and effectiveness of these systems," the publication says.
It is reported that we are talking about a six-month competition with a prize fund of $ 100 million, launched in January jointly by the Defense Innovation Unit and the Autonomous Defense Group under the US Special Operations Command.
The article noted that the project provides for the creation of software capable of converting voice commands into digital instructions and coordinating the actions of drones in the air and at sea, including offensive tasks.
The work will take place in five stages — from software development to testing on real platforms.
The sources clarified that Musk had previously opposed autonomous offensive weapons and in 2015 signed an open letter warning about its risks. Now, according to sources, engineers and managers from xAI and SpaceX will be jointly involved in the project, while OpenAI will limit its participation to the "mission management" element, without integrating weapons and targeting.
Earlier, on December 27, the website of the US Department of War reported that the Pentagon had summarized the 2025 photo summaries and included tests of a promising unmanned aerial vehicle.
One of the published images shows the take-off of a prototype YFQ-42A drone during tests in California at the end of August. The photo in the collection is titled "flight of the future," while the Pentagon called the device a prototype of a semi-autonomous aircraft.
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