Latest Stories
Trump Jr.-Linked Unusual Machines Wins Army Contract
It never hurts to have a few well-connected friends, especially one with a key to the White House. Late last week, Donald Trump Jr.-backed drone and drone component company Unusual Machines ($UMAC) announced that it has won a contract to supply the Army with 3,500 drone motors and other components. Business as (un)usual. Built different: […]
Castelion Wins Army & Navy Integration Contracts
The hype for hypersonics is back, baby. On Friday, hypersonic missile company Castelion announced that it has won multiple awards to integrate its Blackbeard “hypersonic strike weapon” (read: super-fast missile) onto operational US Army and Navy platforms. Castelion couldn’t reveal too many details of the contracts—the DoD is keeping deets hush-hush during the shutdown—but Castelion […]
Saronic and NVIDIA Team Up
If you’re going to make friends as an autonomy company, it’s probably pretty helpful if one of those friends is one of the most powerful and valuable chip companies in the world. Yesterday, maritime autonomy darling Saronic announced that it’s officially inked a “strategic collaboration” with the chipmaking giant NVIDIA (which has a $4.43T market […]
ICYMI: The European Defense Readiness Roadmap
In case you weren’t aware, Europe is, like, kinda freaking out over its defense posture. There’s a whole-ass war still waging on its eastern front, the US has become a less-than-reliable ally, and, well, defense stores are not necessarily where everyone wants them to be. Defense budgets are on the rise, but the continent—based on […]
A Q+A with Arthur Herman and John Burer
If you’ve been in DC anytime in the past few years, you will have heard of Arthur Herman. In case you’re unfamiliar (nerd!), he wrote Freedom’s Forge back in 2012, which has shaped a lot of the First Breakfast-type reindustrialization conversations we’ve been having lately. Sparknotes: The book (if you haven’t read it or have […]
A Q+A with Enrique Oti, CSO at Second Front Systems
Personally, we would give a lot to be a fly on the wall in the early days of the Defense Innovation Unit (RIP Unit X). Luckily, we know a guy who was there. Enrique Oti—apparently referred to intermittently as “Software Jesus of the Air Force”—was one of the co-founders of DIU, and for much of […]
A Q+A with Mal Crease, CEO of Kraken
Some people like to take things slow. Other people—like Mal Crease—prefer everything at full throttle. The founder and CEO of USV company Kraken Technology came into defense from high-speed boat racing in 2020, and has brought the same obsession with speed and performance that once helped him break world records to the world of unmanned […]
A Q+A with Justin Fanelli, CTO of the Navy
If you’re a regular reader of Tectonic, you’ll know that the Navy is majorly changing the way it does things. There’s the Trump administration and SecNav Phelan’s focus on amping up shipbuilding, the push to amp up capabilities by 2027, and—just last week—the introduction of the Naval Rapid Capabilities Office. And that’s just the beginning, […]
