Palmer Luckey on The Axios Show | Full Interview

The original season 2 episodes of The Axios Show were lightly edited for brevity, and many viewers asked us to post the full interviews. This is Palmer Luckey’s complete conversation with Axios, recorded on March 13.

The full conversation was originally published on Axios.com: https://www.axios.com/2026/03/....17/axios-show-palmer

In this interview, Luckey discusses Anduril’s role in the defense industry, the future of autonomous weapons, AI competition with China, Ukraine, Iran, nuclear weapons, Silicon Valley’s relationship with the military and how America should think about the next era of war.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
0:04 - What Anduril does
0:50 - Anduril’s culture
2:12 - Where Anduril has been effective
3:18 - Anduril’s work in the Middle East
3:58 - Competing with Lockheed, Northrop and Boeing
5:16 - Calls from Pentagon leaders
6:34 - How the Defense Department is changing
7:56 - Does defense need larger-than-life founders?
9:02 - Marketing, bluntness and public image
10:11 - Cultural differences and being direct
11:47 - Luckey’s favorite Anduril product
12:13 - Fury and autonomous fighter jets
13:24 - Raising money and betting on Anduril
14:50 - Winning defense contracts
15:45 - Weapons Luckey would and would not build
16:11 - Nuclear weapons and deterrence
17:07 - Chemical and biological weapons
18:37 - Facial recognition and targeting
19:48 - Anthropic, AI models and the military
22:34 - Who should decide how AI is used in war?
24:04 - Elon Musk, Pete Hegseth and Anthropic
26:54 - Luckey on Iran and regime change
29:26 - Trump, MAGA and war
31:11 - Striking Iran and U.S. interests
33:50 - Anduril’s new production facility
35:45 - Arsenal-1, Barracuda and Fury
36:53 - Who is ahead in the AI race?
37:44 - China, surveillance and AI deployment
38:29 - Which parts of government use AI best?
39:00 - Subterranean systems
40:55 - EagleEye and “cat ears”
42:34 - How Gavin Newsom “saved” Anduril
45:28 - Evangelion, NieR and closing