It is definitely naked corruption. Lobbying was always around, but I would say that with this administration things are a lot more transactional and a lot more in the open. Companies like Palantir and Anduril and others are being gifted contracts all over the place - that’s money we taxpayers are losing.

▲

A_D_E_P_T 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Companies like . . . Anduril are being gifted contracts all over the place - that’s money we taxpayers are losing.

Can you point to a concrete example of this?

▲

mikeyouse 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

It's hard to say what they're actually qualified to do but they went from receiving 1 or 2 contracts per year in the early 2020s for a few 10s of millions and I think one larger $200M one to this since Trump was reelected;

$200M - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/1527a7adaff14a5280fc7...

$140M - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/c0203e75ec2949e78966f...

$31M - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/8b0b944955064864942fc...

$1M - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/86d997fbd8a74d0cb298c...

$642M over 10 years - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/c9878b113f5143cba7edb...

$3.1M - https://sam.gov/opp/f15d4b63ebc846cd9f4870cfa0772fff/view

$160M - https://www.anduril.com/news/anduril-awarded-contract-to-red...

$86M - https://www.anduril.com/news/special-operations-command-sele...

$100M - https://www.anduril.com/news/anduril-awarded-usd99-6m-for-u-...

	▲	A_D_E_P_T 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		tbh there's nothing weird about those. The Marine Corps I-CsUAS award is explicitly described as an IDIQ with a maximum dollar value of $642M over 10 years -- though it could be much less -- and reporting indicates it was competitively procured with 10 offerors. It wasn't "gifted"/"no-bid" Also: $642M spread over 10 years is roughly $64M/year at the ceiling, and ceilings are often not fully used. That scale is not remotely unusual for a program-of-record counter-UAS capability if the government believes the threat is persistent. (Which it does.) The rest are similarly mundane and justifiable. Here's what would be weird: Repeated sole-source awards where a competitive approach is feasible, implausible technical scope relative to deliverables, unjustified pricing, or political intervention affecting downselects. I don't see any of that here. (But, okay, let's not talk about Palantir, lol.)

▲

esseph 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It is well known in Defense circles that much of what Anduril does comes in on no-bid black budget contracts. Often short duration or low volume.

Imagine Silicon Valley CEOs pumped full of VC dollars and embedded with units that Don't Exist in places We Were Never At.