Hegseth says US slashed 20pc of its military leadership cadre
• Describes cuts as ‘accountability’, while critics call them a purge
• Musk set to co-lead Pentagon Project Meridian, a study on future of warfare
WASHINGTON: Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that the United States has slashed the number of its generals and admirals by 20 per cent, in a move he said is aimed at “accountability”.
Hegseth suggested the cuts targeted officers who failed to get on board with his efforts to ensure the military is focused on war-fighting rather than the “woke” policies of previous administrations, describing the reductions as an “accomplishment”.
“The number-crunchers say we fired 10pc of the generals and admirals across the force,” Hegseth told troops at the Quantico military base, saying: “We’ve also reduced the overall number of general officer slots by an additional 10pc.” “So yes, 20pc reduction across the board,” he said. “The media calls that a purge. I call it accountability, and long overdue.”
The address to junior officers and enlisted personnel at Quantico came a year after a similar speech to top officers in which Hegseth said the US military was too fat, too focused on leftist “woke” ideas, and in need of major shake-up.
He said on Wednesday that top officers who “responded positively” to the previous speech are “leading newly focused and newly empowered and disciplined formations”, while those who did not “no longer work here”. “We are no longer the woke department or the weak department,” Hegseth said.
“Simple translation of that: no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors — just tough, ready, committed troops.”
Hegseth ordered major cuts to the US military — including a 10pc reduction to the overall number of generals and admirals, and a 20pc decrease in the highest four-star ranks — in May 2025.
Musk’s return
Meanwhile, tech billionaire Elon Musk will make a return to officially advising US President Donald Trump’s government by co-leading what the Pentagon called a study on the future of war.
Musk served as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he spearheaded sweeping job cuts across the US federal government, before departing in May 2025.
In a speech at the Quantico military base, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said “Project Meridian” will be “an effort led by America’s best minds to study the future of warfare”. “We are leveraging a unique source of American advantage, one our adversaries do not have: our innovators, our senior leaders and our technologists,” Hegseth said.
Musk will be a co-leader of Project Meridian alongside Palmer Luckey, the 34-year-old co-founder of defence technology company Anduril Industries, and Newt Gingrich, the 83-year-old Republican former House speaker.
Musk’s companies are already major Pentagon contractors, including SpaceX building satellite networks for Trump’s planned “Golden Dome” missile defence shield.
On Tuesday he was seated next to Trump at a lunch with artificial intelligence executives, where he joined other tech leaders in signing a voluntary AI safety accord that the president described as “morally binding”.
Last week, Musk attended the state dinner Trump hosted for Chinese President Xi Jinping, and in May he flew to Beijing on Air Force One as part of the business delegation accompanying Trump on his state visit to China.
Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2026
