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Former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) has embraced his new role as head of defense business at the controversial Silicon Valley tech firm Palantir with relish, promising to use his connections in government to make it easier for emerging military tech firms to thrive, in large part by securing more of your tax dollars.
Senior government officials passing through the revolving door to cash in on lucrative jobs in the arms industry is not a new phenomenon. In a study I did last fall, we found that 80 percent of the three and four star generals who left government service in the past five years went to work in the arms sector in one way or another. And a 2023 report by the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) found that at least 700 former senior Pentagon and other government officials now work for one of the top 20 weapons contractors.
At the time of the report’s release, Warren argued that “[w]hen government officials cash in on their public service by lobbying, advising, or serving as board members and executives for the companies they used to regulate, it undermines public officials’ integrity and casts doubt on the fairness of government contracting. This problem is especially concerning and pronounced in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the United States’ defense industry.”
Powerful members of Congress also regularly go through the revolving door, including most notably former House Armed Services Committee Chair Buck McKeon, whose lobbying shop has represented both arms contractors like Lockheed Martin and arms buyers like Saudi Arabia.
But Gallagher’s case is particularly egregious, given the central role he will play in his new firm’s business and lobbying strategies. Palantir’s ambitions go well beyond the kind of favor seeking in government weapons buying that Sen. Warren has described. Its goal is to shape the overarching U.S. national security policy that may determine what military technology the U.S. invests in for the next generation. The Gallagher hire fits perfectly with that plan.
