Anduril Wants a $60 Billion Valuation While Its Founder Cheers the Pentagon Blacklisting AI Companies
Palmer Luckey Wants $60 Billion for His Defense Startup
Anduril, the defense technology company founded by Oculus creator Palmer Luckey, is raising a new funding round that would value the company at $60 billion. The round, led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, could bring as much as $8 billion of fresh capital into the company, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
This comes less than a year after Anduril's Series G, which closed in June 2025 with $2.5 billion at a $30 billion valuation. In other words, Anduril is asking investors to believe it has doubled in value in under 12 months. Lux Capital and Founders Fund are also expected to participate.
The Convenient Timing
The fundraise arrives at a moment when Anduril's biggest potential competitor in AI defense contracts is being systematically pushed out of the market. After a contract dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon, the U.S. government is in the process of canceling all its contracts with the AI company. Secretary of Defense Hegseth has even threatened to designate Anthropic as a supply-chain risk — a move that would effectively blacklist the company from all government work.
Luckey has not been shy about supporting this development. "At the end of the day," he wrote on X, "you have to believe that our imperfect constitutional republic is still good enough to run a country without outsourcing the real levers of power to billionaires and corpos and their shadow advisors."
The Irony Is Thick
There is a certain irony in a billionaire defense contractor — whose company exists to sell military technology to the government — warning about "outsourcing the real levers of power to billionaires and corpos." Anduril is, by definition, a corporation run by a billionaire that wants the government to outsource its defense capabilities to... Anduril.
But the statement makes more sense when you realize that eliminating competitors like Anthropic from the defense market makes Anduril more valuable. A $60 billion valuation is a lot easier to justify when your biggest potential rivals are being blacklisted.
What Anduril Actually Does
Anduril builds autonomous military systems including surveillance towers, underwater drones, and counter-drone defense systems. The company has positioned itself as the anti-establishment defense contractor, promising to bring Silicon Valley speed and innovation to a Pentagon procurement system that has been dominated by legacy contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon for decades.
The company has won significant contracts with the U.S. military and allied nations, and its technology has been deployed in real-world conflict zones. Unlike many defense-tech startups that struggle to navigate Pentagon bureaucracy, Anduril has successfully landed production contracts, not just pilot programs.
The Bottom Line
Anduril doubling its valuation to $60 billion in under a year is either a testament to genuine business growth or a reflection of how defense-tech valuations inflate when competitors get pushed out of the market. Palmer Luckey cheering the government's crackdown on Anthropic while simultaneously raising billions at a higher valuation is not corruption — it is just extremely convenient capitalism. The question investors should ask: how much of this valuation is driven by Anduril's actual performance, and how much is driven by the shrinking competitive landscape? In defense tech, sometimes the best strategy is not building a better product — it is making sure nobody else gets to compete.