Something about a flying metal suit…https://t.co/6Z1D9iZ1fV
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2016
Elon Musk is 100% aware of all the jokes everyone’s been making that he’s actually Iron Man, and he’s also completely willing to play along. The multi-billionaire SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO recently had a hush-hush meeting at the Pentagon—in that no one really knows what it was about—and was more than happy to provide fuel for rampant speculation.
Sadly, his tweet about a flying metal suit is pretty much definitely a joke, but whatever he was there about was probably pretty fascinating, considering he’s currently trying to spearhead humanity’s first steps on another planet, significantly faster public transportation, and the transition to electric cars (and maybe solar homes) all at once. He’s not the only one who was invited to D.C. for meetings, either—a Pentagon spokesperson told CNN that Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who Musk met with, “has been reaching out to a number of members of the technology community to get their ideas, their feedback, find out what’s going on in the world of innovation.”
It’s all kind of buzz-wordy with variations on the word “innovation” being tossed around, but the meetings seem to be a general admission by the U.S. Defense Department that private companies are outpacing them on adaptation to and adoption of new technology. This acknowledgment of outside talent also led to the recent “Hack the Pentagon” initiative, where outside hackers were invited to test the Defense Department’s cyber security measures for holes in order to help them improve.
Carter is very interested in keeping this kind of public/private cooperation going in the future to help the Defense Department stay on top of technology, having established the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental in Silicon Valley and Boston to try to bridge that gap. I mean, it’s no Avengers Initiative, but I’m sure it’ll help.
(featured image via Marvel Entertainment)
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