Elon Musk made a mysterious visit to the Pentagon Wednesday to discuss "the overarching, broad topic of innovation" with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, a Department of Defense spokesperson told Complex. That description could mean pretty much anything, especially given that this is someone who plans to start a civilization on Mars in a few years and build a submarine car. But when Musk noticed CNN speculating about his meeting, he cleared things up... sort of.
All he would give us was that his presence at the Pentagon was somehow related to a flying metal suit. Gizmodo theorizes that this could be either an Iron Man joke or a reference to the military exoskeletons the government's developing.
We have a feeling he's left it ambiguous on purpose, but here's what we do know about the meeting. Defense Department spokesman Peter Cook told CNN that Carter "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." Carter started the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental for the government to collaborate with the private sector on developing technology.
Musk's company SpaceX has been competing for government contracts for rocket launch services and even sued the government in 2014 for only giving contracts to United Launch Alliance. The lawsuit was settled, and in April, the Air Force gave him $82.7 million to launch a sattelite into space, according to CNN. That would cover the "flying" part, but "metal suit" is still a mystery.
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