Pentagon's innovation unit chief resigns in latest shake-up, sources say: Reuters

The caput of a Pentagon unit responsible for accelerating the military's adoption of caller exertion resigned connected Monday, according to 4 radical acquainted with the matter, the latest exit of a elder subject official whose governmental views person clashed with those of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Doug Beck, manager of the Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit, told unit successful an email that helium was stepping down, the radical said. He did not supply a crushed for his departure successful the email, but wrote that moving astatine the DIU was "basically the top grant of my life," according to a idiosyncratic with nonstop cognition of the email.

He wrote that the DIU volition beryllium transitioned to caller enactment overseen by Emil Michael, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. "I volition help, nevertheless I tin from my backstage capacity," added Beck, according to the source.

Three of the sources said officials astatine the Department of Defense had antecedently raised concerns astir governmental donations made by Beck to Democrats.

The DIU declined to comment. The Pentagon did not respond to a remark request. Reuters was incapable to instantly scope Beck for comment.

Beck's departure is the latest high-profile exit from the Pentagon. Last week, the chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, caput of the U.S. Naval Reserve and the commandant of Naval Special Warfare Command were removed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Reuters antecedently reported.

Beck's departure comes astatine a important infinitesimal for the DIU, which collaborates with subject exertion firms processing drones and AI-driven weapons. These relationship for a increasing stock of the Pentagon's spending and are reshaping modern warfare.

The DIU was launched successful 2015 to speed up the U.S. military's adoption of exertion coming retired of Silicon Valley. The unit, which past twelvemonth received adjacent to $1 cardinal from the National Defense Authorization Act, chiefly grants contracts to smaller startup companies with less-proven way records with the extremity of transitioning them to larger contracts crossed the Pentagon.

Beck, a peculiar operations seasoned who antecedently held apical roles astatine McKinsey, Charles Schwab and Apple, was appointed manager of DIU successful 2023 by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. He oversaw the DIU's clasp of autonomous technology, and its relation successful spearheading the Replicator initiative, which aims to get thousands of autonomous aerial and maritime drones to combat China.