Installing tech billionaires Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to Pentagon defense board raises conflict-of-interest concerns

• Send us your questions about how the Iran war will affect US voters in the midterms

By installing the tech billionaires Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to advisory roles in a Pentagon project about the future of warfare, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, bestowed extraordinary influence on two of Maga’s most significant campaign donors – and both men own companies that benefit from federal defense contracting.

The new project, which Hegseth dubbed “Project Meridian” in an event in Quantico, Virginia, on Wednesday, will be led by Pentagon official Emil Michael, a former Uber executive. As the Guardian has reported, Michael made millions in profits off non-public Musk company AI stock while in federal office – and while guiding the Department of Defense’s artificial intelligence efforts.

The US’s oil deal with Venezuela faces multiple legal and logistical problems, including questions about whether it can be implemented

Donald Trump has long coveted the oilfields of other nations and declared an agreement with Venezuela to be “the biggest oil deal in world history”. But the deal, reached after the US seized Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, is almost certainly doomed to collapse amid a wide array of legal and logistical issues, a Guardian investigation has found.

The US president first mused about taking oil from Iran in 1987, when he told ABC’s Barbara Walters that Iranian attacks on American shipping during the Iran-Iraq war required an extreme response. “Why couldn’t we go in and take over some of their oil, which is along the sea?” he asked. Over the ensuing years, he has returned frequently to the idea that America should seize oil from other countries after military conflict, from Libya to Iraq.