SpaceX, xAI Battle for $100M Pentagon Drone Swarm Contract
Musk's companies compete in a secretive DoD contest to build voice-controlled autonomous drone swarms, with OpenAI backing a rival bid.
Two Elon Musk companies are going head-to-head in a classified Pentagon competition worth $100 million. SpaceX and its wholly owned subsidiary xAI are both vying to build voice-controlled autonomous drone swarms for the Department of Defense.
The twist? They're not just competing against each other. OpenAI is also in the mix, backing Applied Intuition's submission to the same contest.
The goal: drone swarms that operators can command using natural voice instructions. Think less joystick jockeying, more talking to a lethal flock of robots.
It's a notable collision of AI heavyweights on military turf. Musk's companies occupy two slots in the competition, while his AI rival OpenAI powers a third team's entry. The DoD clearly wants the biggest names in AI and aerospace throwing punches for this one.