A defense technology company co-founder delivered harsh criticism of American lawmakers and Silicon Valley during a Washington conference. Trae Stephens of Anduril Industries warned that congressional dysfunction and tech industry resistance to military partnerships are helping China gain strategic advantages.
A prominent defense technology executive delivered scathing remarks about American political leadership on Tuesday, claiming that legislative gridlock and tech industry attitudes are allowing China to gain ground in the global competition for military dominance.
Trae Stephens, who co-founded Anduril Industries, addressed hundreds of business leaders and government officials at Washington’s Hill and Valley Forum, placing blame squarely on domestic failures for America’s declining position in what he described as a technological arms race against Beijing.
“Our federal government is not doing its job,” Stephens declared. “It does not help us build great things. It does not solve hard problems. Frankly, it has abandoned its post.”
Stephens holds positions as both a partner with San Francisco’s Founders Fund venture capital firm and chairman of Costa Mesa-based Anduril, which ranks among Silicon Valley’s most significant defense technology investments.
During his presentation, Stephens outlined what he characterized as decades of American legislative inaction. He pointed to immigration policy, noting that despite 70 to 80 percent public support for comprehensive changes, Congress has failed to enact meaningful reforms for four decades.
The executive also criticized healthcare spending, highlighting that America invests approximately twice what other democratic nations spend while achieving inferior results. He expressed concern about educational performance, noting the country’s drop from the top 10 in academic achievement and significant gaps in mathematics and science competency at a time when artificial intelligence is transforming employment prospects for new graduates.
Stephens reserved his harshest comments for infrastructure investments, telling attendees that more than one trillion dollars designated for semiconductor and clean energy initiatives had yielded little beyond “a handful of lousy EV charging stations and not a single fully built chips fab.”
“We haven’t even sent a man to the moon in my lifetime,” Stephens stated. “‘It’s too hard’ or ‘someone else is going to do this’ aren’t excuses that cut it anymore in the 21st century.”
The defense technology leader argued that elected officials lack the structural capacity to match the speed of technological advancement, citing examples where Facebook reached 2 billion users before platform regulations emerged, military drones were deployed before domestic threat laws existed, and cryptocurrency transactions worth trillions occurred before government classification agreements.
“If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail,” he explained. “When your main tools are investigations and the bully pulpit, the rules they write are often already obsolete by the time they take effect.”
However, Stephens also directed criticism toward the technology sector, arguing that Silicon Valley’s historical reluctance to engage with Pentagon projects has strengthened adversarial nations. He referenced pushback against initiatives like Project Maven during the 2010s while portions of the tech community facilitated China’s growth into a “stronger, richer and more capable” competitor.
“There is no moral neutrality in that decision,” he emphasized.
These comments coincided with Anduril’s launch of production operations at its new $1 billion Arsenal-1 manufacturing facility located south of Columbus, Ohio. The complex is projected to create over 4,000 jobs within the next ten years and will initially focus on producing the company’s FURY autonomous combat drone, designed for the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program that combines unmanned systems with human pilots.
