Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs Appointed Lieutenant Colonels in US Army (2025) | Hacker News Reader

Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs Appointed Lieutenant Colonels in US Army (2025)

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100 pointsalexmorley52 comments

This is news from June 14, 2025.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachment_201

https://www.army.mil/article/286317/army_launches_detachment...

The tech industry is falling in line just as expected. Disgraceful. Don't take orders from a LtCol with zero military experience.

You assume they don't agree.

Nobody is taking orders from these guys. They're advisors.

They're advisors with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Sure. The US military has done this for decades to prevent brain-drain around emerging technologies to the private sector.

They could make them plain old Lieutenants for that, yes?

Distinction without a difference. They're advisors.

Then why do they need the elevated rank?

I have a dumb question but is it possible to arrange exec-tier or at last officer-tier pay for something like a private?

No level of normal military pay is gonna be meaningful to these folks, at any rank.

They're right above Privates, so still no one (of consequence) is taking orders from them.

What? Per https://www.army.mil/ranks/, they outrank all enlisted and warrant officers, plus Second Lieutenants, First Lieutenants, Captains, and Majors.

Only full Colonels and the 1-5 star Generals outrank them.

To me it reads the other way around, the big money folks in the tech sector are pushing their influence into the military.

Yeah, this reads as the oligarchy further consolidating power.

You seem to be confused. When the tech industry starts appointing people to the military, it's America that is falling in line to them.

Direct commission is a long standing practice, especially for technical fields like medical and now electronic warfare. Surgeons may direct commission to varying field-grade ranks as well, with bonus structure to be competitive with private practice. Military outsources these technical degrees to bring in blood in these voids.

Electronic warfare is typically done by employed soldiers.

Maybe they can also get FIFA Peace prizes next?

They should get UEFA peace prize to temporarily get off Greenland.

For context. This is how it was done during the Manhattan Project. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Peopl...

The article you cited said it was done during wartime. It was a way to keep the scientists and technicians who were drafted into military service... so they can keep working in the laboratories they are already working in.

As a solution, the Manhattan Engineer District (MED) in May secured authorization to establish the Special Engineering Detachment (SED) to which technical and scientific personnel could be assigned upon being drafted

This was also why Werhner Von Braun was made an officer in the SS.

It looks like I am sharing all of my data with US Army!

Almost everyone in the world is doing that except maybe China and some other countries.

It is wrong when they do it too.

This is nothing new. The Army has been doing this forever. A certain General Failure was reading my C: drive all the way back in the 80s.

I'll show myself out..

(June 2025)

Did this mean less Russian propaganda bots or more American propaganda bots?

The comments here are hilarious. Every competent military in the world has DCO programs... Otherwise they'd never be able to attract talent for specialised fields.

Way too easy to stir the pot here. Dig up some plausibly tech-themed political news from a few months ago, post, and watch the piranhas start nipping at it.

(2025)

Discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44268547

This seems fine. The question is will these execs still have ties to the tech companies they're supposedly leaving.

Why does the army tuck their pants into their boots like that? Do they like wicking and trapping moisture into their shoes?

horse riding magazine, someone liked the look?

Complete with costumes! My ...

I'm normally very reluctant to cheer most comparisons us the US political situation to nazi germany, or to fascism in general.

But events like this (and the Intel stake) seem like an exact implementation of what has come to be called The Third Position[0], which, if I understand correctly, was the etymology of the world 'fascism' itself.

Mussolini's 1913 Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria was apparently named after 'fasci', or corporate syndicates, his vision of which is basically exactly what we're seeing here: the state owning stakes in the means of technocratic production, and corporate leaders in positions of military command.

And although "The Third Position" is usually called a _neo_-fascist movement, I believe that Mussolini articulated it, more or less in its entirety, some time in the early 1920s?

I'm more of a political scientist than a historian, so it's possible I have this wrong.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Position

SMHing my head at my country right now. What have we become.

SMH? Shaking my head my head ?

Shaking my heading my head.

And as usual the USA fell better and faster than his peers

If you looked it up, it’s been the same since manhattan project. They don’t give orders but rather are “advisors/consultants” - prevents wasting billions. Or you can just SMH yourself out the country.

Does this mean the execs are now also under the UCMJ?

I wonder if the executives have realised this

Their legal teams will most certainly have been involved.

Old (2025), but TOTALLY not fascism at all.

For more context: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/03/1255164460/1a-army-07-03-2025

So, we have a sitting US Senator/astronaut/Navy Vet who is being harassed by the "Secretary" of Defense for making a video telling troop that they can (and must) refuse unconstitutional orders. This tells us a bit about how the administration and DoD view the constitution versus chain-of-command.

Thusly, I can only assume that these "Lieutenant Colonels" are there to be ordered to do things which they cannot refuse if constitutional, and will still be expected to do if unconstitutional.

Totes not fascism.

Secretary of “War”

Trump can't change the name of the Department, only the letterhead. Congress would have to change the name. There is no Secretary of War in the USA.

It got to the point that now there is a "SSecretary" of War.

All that is left on my bingo card is for them to outright invent a religious cult (they're already a cult of a different sort) to both get tax exempt status and actually zealously believe in it too.

I thought CCCP deploying PLA soldiers at Chinese tech companies was a problem. I guess the US is trying the fascist approach to things now :).

Old news but worth revisiting. There has been and continues to be open corruption in the Trump administration. If you donate to them and support their political positions blindingly, you get contracts or regulatory help or maybe a lack of regulatory trouble.

A good example is Jensen Huang donating to the ballroom project and Nvidia’s Groq acquisition not being blocked for antitrust. But you see this with many other leaders too. The All In podcast is basically a MAGA podcast now. Many VCs are silent about current events as they hope their portfolio companies get defense contracts.

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