The Army Made Four Tech Executives Lieutenant Colonels — None Had Military Experience
On June 13, 2025, the U.S. Army swore in four technology executives as lieutenant colonels in the Army Reserve under a program called Detachment 201: The Executive Innovation Corps —designed to bring Silicon Valley talent into the military. The four were Shyam Sankar, ChiefTechnology Officer of Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of Meta; Kevin Weil,Chief Product Officer of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, former Chief Research Officer of OpenAI. Lieutenant colonel is a rank that typically takes 16 to 20 years of military service to achieve. None of the four had any prior military service. None were required to complete the Army’s six-week Direct Commissioning Course. None were required to pass the Army Fitness Test and none will be required to recuse themselves from business dealings with the Department of Defense, confirmed.
As reported by Military.com., just before Bosworth was sworn in, Meta announced a deal with defense company Anduril to pursue military AI contracts. OpenAI announced a $200 million defense contract within days of the ceremony. Palantir already holds a $759 million Army AI development contract. Virginia Canter, chief counsel for Democracy Defenders Fund, called for a congressional investigation. “These newly minted lieutenant colonels are not career military personnel,” Canter said. “They are executives with deep financial ties to companies actively profiting from or pursuing massive Pentagon contracts.” Some veterans and career officers described the move as “a slap in the face” to those who spent decades earning the rank. The legal authority for the program exists — Congress expanded direct commissioning authority in 2019 for critical fields including cyber and AI. The Army argues the program is necessary to modernize faster than traditional procurement allows.
The U.S. and Nigeria Conducted Joint Military Strikes — A Significant and Underreported
Expansion of U.S. Operations in Africa
Nigeria’s military confirmed this week that it conducted joint military strikes with the United States against what both governments described as terrorist infrastructure in northeastern Nigeria. The operation targeted positions associated with Boko Haram and ISWAP — the Islamic State West Africa Province — in the Lake Chad Basin region. The joint strikes represent a documented expansion of direct U.S. military operations in Africa. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy. The Lake Chad Basin has experienced ongoing insurgent violence for more than a decade. The U.S. Africa Command maintains bases and advisory relationships across the continent but joint strike operations of this nature are not routinely publicized by either government.
The 2026 Alzheimer’s drug pipeline review — published by researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and welcomed by Alzheimer’s Research UK — found that the number of drugs in clinical development for Alzheimer’s disease is now the largest and most diverse it has ever been. Treatments targeting multiple different mechanisms of the disease are simultaneously in trials — increasing the statistical probability that at least some will succeed. “The 2026 pipeline review gives me huge optimism that we’re building towards a future in which Alzheimer’s can be effectively treated — and, in time, prevented,” said lead researcher Dr. Jeffrey Cummings. Alzheimer’s disease affects approximately 6.7 million Americans — the majority of whom are women — and is the leading cause of full-time unpaid family caregiving in the United States. It is the condition most feared by Gen X adults watching their parents age. The breadth of the current pipeline means the odds of a treatment breakthrough in the next decade are meaningfully higher than at any previous point in the disease’s research history.