The Defense Department has selected Owen West, a former Wall Street trader and Marine, to lead its Defense Innovation Unit, the department’s highest-profile unit tasked with bringing startup technology into the U.S. military, according to two department officials.
West will assume leadership in February or March, the Defense Department officials said, taking the helm of an operation that has been rocked by turmoil in recent months. The prior leader of the Defense Innovation Unit, combat veteran and former Apple executive Doug Beck, was pushed out along with several staffers last August, leaving a smaller organization.
The appointment of West brings some stability to a unit that had been left in flux. He takes the reins from Emil Michael, a former Uber Technologies executive who runs research and engineering for the Defense Department, and has been serving as acting director of DIU. West is a familiar figure around the Defense Department: He began working there early last year as the lead Pentagon staffer with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
A former energy trader at Goldman Sachs, where he worked for about two decades, West also previously served as the assistant secretary of defense for special operations during the first Trump administration, a role that involved advising on irregular warfare tactics, such as disinformation campaigns, involving adversaries such as Russia and China.
Add new comment