US Army swore in tech executives as lieutenant colonels

Fillerguy

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In a June 13, 2025, news release, the Army announced the swearing-in of four tech executives as lieutenant colonels, a rank that typically takes nearly two decades to achieve. The executives will serve part-time in the Army Reserve as senior advisers. As of this writing, all of the executives either currently hold or once held senior positions at Meta, Palantir or OpenAI. Thus, we rate this claim true.

Per the news release, these executives will serve in a new initiative called "Detachment 201: The Army's Executive Innovation Corps," which is "designed to fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation."

Det. 201 is an effort to recruit senior tech executives to serve part-time in the Army Reserve as senior advisors. In this role they will work on targeted projects to help guide rapid and scalable tech solutions to complex problems. By bringing private-sector know-how into uniform, Det. 201 is supercharging efforts like the Army Transformation Initiative, which aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal.

The four new Army Reserve Lt. Cols. are Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer for Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former Chief Research Officer for OpenAI.


We entering our militech era
 

Luke Cage

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Slap in the face to active and past military people who actually have to serve that time to achieve that rank. Cacs really voted this country into a nosedive:snoop:
No, this wasn't some flunkeys getting promotions type shyt,like say trump giving anit science people positions on medical boards. It sounds like they are expanding to combat AI. And need these guys likely the most qualified for that role as former tech guys
 

Marc Spector

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This is a new spin on a existing idea.

Non line officers are terminal degreed professionals such as Doctors, Lawyers, Chaplains, Nurses and certain flavors of STEM who directly commission in a Armed Service branch to a rank commensurate with their educational level and work experience. I once saw a senior ER Nurse commission in as a Lt Col.

The biggest difference between non line officers and regular O's is Non Lines never hold command of Force Operations.

They spend their whole career as specialized officers in their career field and at most will promote to a senior advisor/administrator role, as opposed to being a regular General officer who has influence on doctrine and policy that drives the entire force.

This initiative is an expansion of an existing program that the Services are doing to lure in tech professionals and commission them as non lIne officers. And it's not all TechBros either. If you ever heard of Dragos, their CEO (who was a USAF Officer but got out) is one of the leading experts on OT&E/ICS systems and recently re-entered service as a Army Lt. Col in the National Guard. Experts like that will be critical in helping shore up domestic systems.
 

WIA20XX

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We entering our militech era

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ucanthandlethetruth

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No, this wasn't some flunkeys getting promotions type shyt,like say trump giving anit science people positions on medical boards. It sounds like they are expanding to combat AI. And need these guys likely the most qualified for that role as former tech guys
I get your point but That's what the military has contractors for. I'm just saying this can't be a morale boost to the people who serve in the military and have to grind for years to get those spots. Maybe I'm incorrect I never served so it's just my opinion p
@p1
 

Marc Spector

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I get your point but That's what the military has contractors for. I'm just saying this can't be a morale boost to the people who serve in the military and have to grind for years to get those spots. Maybe I'm incorrect I never served so it's just my opinion p
@p1
The benefit of commissioning these guys as reservists is that its exponentially cheaper to bring them in and their role can be agile as opposed to having them charge an insane amount of money for contract work that often time has very strict stipulations on the services being rendered.

And there’s no way you could convince these guys to become civil servants, especially with DOGE cutting those types of jobs anyway.

This way the army gets service out of them (at a premium discount) and they get to keep doing their regular jobs.
 

darkmanp

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Imagine being a major in the Army, grinding for 18 years until you reach age 40, and having to salute and defer to some 23 year old who has knows nothing of the military and never even went through basic training. I can see these tech pros cosplaying in uniforms, having lower rank soldiers take orders from them. Stolen valor.
 
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