Hegseth puts nearly every Pentagon drone program under one new office

A June 29 memo hands a single "drone czar" directive and contracting authority over most US unmanned programs, from small quadcopters to sea robots, as Washington races to close a production gap it is losing on volume.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo on June 29 creating one office with authority over nearly every unmanned program in the US military, Breaking Defense reported after obtaining the document. The Pentagon made it public two days later.

The new office, the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems, or DRPM-UxS, will be "the single joint integrator for all unmanned and autonomous system programs" in the department, according to the memo. Its director, still unnamed, answers to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg.

The DRPM-UxS takes directive authority over Group 1-3 drones, unmanned surface and underwater vessels, ground robots, counter-drone systems, and the autonomy and swarming software that runs them, DefenseScoop wrote. Larger airframes stay with the services. The Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the Navy's MQ-25 tanker and MQ-4C surveillance drone, and the Navy's medium unmanned surface vessel are all carved out, per USNI News.

Hegseth gave the office milestone decision power over its programs, letting it direct service contracting, shift money through the Pentagon comptroller and stop any system before it reaches the field, Defense News noted. It also folds in the counter-drone task force JIATF-401 and the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, the mass-production effort descended from the Replicator initiative. Billets under the office are exempt from the department's hiring freezes.

For industry, the pivotal line names the Defense Innovation Unit as the sole interface between the department and commercial drone makers for the whole portfolio, and orders the office to write open-architecture and interoperability standards for the fleet. DroneXL, which tracks the drone market, called that certified front door the clearest buying signal US manufacturers have seen, pointing to firms such as Neros and Skydio, and pegged the wider drone and counter-drone budget behind the portfolio near $75 billion, a figure the Pentagon has not confirmed.

Adversaries turn out millions of unmanned systems a year and the US "has been slow to field these capabilities at scale," Parnell said, casting the office as the way to catch up on output. Defense News put the FY27 ask for autonomous platforms at $53.6 billion.

No director has been chosen, and the memo sets no deadline. Until Feinberg fills the seat, the services' scattered unmanned programs wait on the inventory and execution plan the memo orders within months, USNI News reported.