Why did the US Army commission four technocrats as high-ranking military officers?

By Olivia Murray

Four technocrats who are closely affiliated with Meta, Palantir, and OpenAI were just commissioned into the U.S. Army as lieutenant colonels, which I find to be extremely odd, and seriously concerning.

Here’s the story, from a report at Task & Purpose:

Four senior executives of tech giants like Meta and Palantir are being sworn into the Army Reserve as direct-commissioned officers at the unusually high rank of lieutenant colonel as part of a new program to recruit private-sector experts to speed up tech adoption.

For context, these Silicon Valley executives just skipped the entire enlisted rank structure (12 ascending positions), and four officer ranks, and jumped right to O-5. And, here are the four names:

The Reserve’s new lieutenant colonels are Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer for Palantir; Bosworth, chief technology officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, chief product officer of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former chief research officer for OpenAI.

Since my mind immediately goes to scandal and conspiracy when I see the federal government cozying up to Big Tech (I’m engrossed in the news every day, can you blame me?), I quizzed a military friend trying to understand any reason why this might not be the nightmare it seems, wondering if I were overlooking or missing something. His conclusion was logical and simple: the only reason people are commissioned into the military is because they want to work within the military framework.

I asked if it was because maybe their civilian status precludes them from being involved in sensitive tasks or missions? He replied no, noting that civilian consultants are a normal thing in the military, and then referenced Hillary Clinton who “never served a day in her life” but held a Top Secret SCI until very recently, when President Trump revoked it.

And, these four men aren’t going to be officers in the traditional sense, as they’re exempt from standard military requirements:

As Task & Purpose notes, the men will get to skip the usual process of taking a Direct Commissioning Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, and they won’t need to complete the Army Fitness Test.

So, why are top executives in Big Tech joining the military?

Especially alarming is that all three tech firms, largely owned by BlackRock and Vanguard, are known for being enemies to liberty and freedom. (I wrote on a disturbing development regarding Palantir here.) At least two of these technocrats are World Economic Forum elites—and now they’re leaders in our military? Is Sankar just a surrogate for Palantir’s Alex Karp?

This doesn’t sit right with me at all.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/06/why_did_the_us_army_commission_four_technocrats_as_high_ranking_military_officers.html