Palmer Luckey says refusing to work with the Pentagon is really, really dangerous and reveals the one big thing Silicon Valley is vowing to never do again

In 2018, Google did something that Palmer Luckey believes was “really, really dangerous.” The tech giant pulled out of working on the Department of Defense’s Project Maven after thousands of employees protested being involved with the Pentagon program, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze surveillance data to potentially use for targeted drone strikes.While Google was one of the first tech companies to walk away from the Pentagon, it isn’t the last.And that, Luckey believes, imperils democracy, creating a world where Silicon Valley executives have more power than the President of the United States.“For the first time in history, the most valuable technology companies refused to work with the military,” he said of the incident.On a recent visit to The New York Post headquarters, the 33-year-old founder of defense tech giant Anduril Industries was adamant that decision-making should be in the hands of elected leaders.Anyone who argues otherwise, he says, is pushing toward something darker than they realize.“You are effectively saying you do not believe in this democratic experiment — that you want a corporatocracy,” Luckey told me.For a man regarded as an iconoclast, deferring to Washington politicians might seem out of character, but it captures something essential about Luckey.

He’s a true patriot who supports American supremacy, believes in the efficiency of innovation, and distrusts the unchecked power of Big Tech.Part of his philosophy comes from having seen the inner workings of companies with too much power and ultimately being the victim of it.In 2014, he sold his first company, Oculus — the VR headset maker he built in his parents’ garage — to Facebook for $2 billion.

Three years later, he was pushed out after donating $10,000 to a pro-Trump group during the 2016 election, triggering a backlash from Facebook developers and employees.Roughly a decade later, he watched as Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs sat behind the preside...