Well, it seems the Pentagon is taking the matter of rare earths into its own hands. Yesterday, the DoD announced it’s buying $400M of convertible preferred shares in Las Vegas-based rare earths mining company MP Materials, making it the company’s largest stakeholder with a 15% stake. The DoD will also issue MP a $150M loan […]
Aid paused (again): After meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at last week’s NATO summit in The Hague, President Donald Trump was pretty gung-ho on Kyiv. When asked about whether the country would receive more desperately-needed Patriots, he said they “want to have the anti-missile missiles, as they call them, and we’re going to see if […]
Cash-telion: The hype for hypersonics is real. In its FY26 budget, the Army is requesting $25M to develop “Blackbeard” hypersonic missiles made by Castelion—just five months after the California-based missile startup raised $100M in a Series A funding round. Talk about a hot launch. Origin story: Castelion was founded in 2022 by three SpaceX alums—Bryon […]
As the saying goes, there are some weeks where decades happen. Between intel leaks at home, the NATO summit in The Hague, and a rather unorthodox ceasefire in Iran, last week was (another) one of those in the defense world. And then came the kicker: On Thursday, the Pentagon unveiled its FY26 budget request. Like, […]
It’s been quite the week for Pete Hegseth. In the past few days, he faced lawmakers on the Hill for the first time since becoming SecDef to defend a $1T DoD budget request that, well, he hasn’t released. Then, the House went ahead and released their appropriations bill, his procurement budget was leaked, and he […]
The disagreements in Washington continue. Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) unveiled its answer to the House’s $150B defense reconciliation bill and, well, there were some differences. The SASC package—which will be folded into the Senate’s version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” to push through Trump’s agenda—focuses way more on air superiority, low-cost […]
We told you that things were speeding up. Late last week, energetics company Firehawk Aerospace announced that they’ve secured a $4.9M contract with the US Air Force to help accelerate the development of next-gen hybrid rocket engines for strategic and tactical missiles. Firehawk CEO Will Edwards told Tectonic that the company will work with AFRL […]
In case you missed it, Trump’s FY26 budget request dropped Friday, and, to quote one executive we chatted to, it was a “bloodbath.” Everything from NASA, to the NIH, to the CDC, to the EPA face massive budget cuts, while DHS is set to receive a boost of nearly $43.8B. Up and up: At least […]
If you took top Trump officials, Silicon Valley elite, some of the world’s wealthiest investors and executives, and a whole bunch of defense tech founders and stuck them in a room, what would you get? The Hill and Valley Forum, apparently. Yesterday, as budget negotiations continued overhead, tech and policy big guns (pun intended) gathered […]
The hype for hypersonics continues. On Friday, U.S. Army officials released the official name for their long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW). The service chose “Dark Eagle” as a tribute to the “master hunter known for its speed, stealth and agility,” and because the weapon can function in denied environments. Pretty poetic, tbh. “The Dark Eagle brings […]
