US Army swore in 4 tech executives as lieutenant colonels. Here’s why

In 2026, social media users spread a rumor that the U.S. Army swore in four senior tech executives as lieutenant colonels. 

The claim spread on Facebook, with posts claiming the tech executives have ties to Meta, which owns social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; Palantir, a data analysis software company; OpenAI, which developed the generative artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT; and Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup. 

As we previously reported, in a June 13, 2025, news release, the Army announced the swearing-in of four tech executives as lieutenant colonels, a rank that typically takes nearly two decades to achieve. 

The executives serve part time in the Army Reserve as senior advisers for an initiative called “Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps” that is “designed to fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation,” per the news release.

The four executives all have or had senior positions at Meta, Palantir, Thinking Machines Lab or OpenAI. Thus, we have rated this claim true.

However, the posts circulating in 2026 implied that the swearing-in of the four executives occurred in June 2026, not 2025. That was not correct.

Here’s the Army’s 2025 news release about the initiative’s launch (emphasis ours):

On June 13, 2025, the Army will officially swear in four tech leaders.

Det. 201 is an effort to recruit senior tech executives to serve part-time in the Army Reserve as senior advisors. In this role they will work on targeted projects to help guide rapid and scalable tech solutions to complex problems. By bringing private-sector know-how into uniform, Det. 201 is supercharging efforts like the Army Transformation Initiative, which aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal.

The four new Army Reserve Lt. Cols. are Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer for Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former Chief Research Officer for OpenAI.

Sankar, Bosworth, Weil and McGrew also published their own statements on X announcing their swearings-in; Bosworth said in his statement that the four advisers’ “primary role will be to serve as technical experts advising the Army’s modernization efforts.”

The Wall Street Journal reported (archived) that the “tech reservists will serve for around 120 days a year.”

Army announced new cohort of tech executives in June 2026

It’s possible the July 2026 posts confused that first cohort (Sankar, Bosworth, Weil and McGrew) with a June 10, 2026, announcement by the Army that it had commissioned three additional tech executives into the same reserve unit. One person in that group also works for Meta.

The three new executives are from Cloudflare, a company that provides a range of internet services; Sutter Hill Ventures, a venture capital investment firm focused on technology-based start-up companies; and Meta (specifically Facebook AI Research).

Here’s the relevant portion of a 2026 news release with that announcement (emphasis ours):

Detachment 201 is a specialized Army Reserve unit designed to bridge the gap between private-sector innovation and military modernization. It reflects the War Department’s broader push to leverage private-sector technical capabilities to address complex national security and defense challenges.

The program selects applicants who are highly skilled civilian technology professionals at the executive or C-suite level to serve as part-time strategic advisers. These officers use their advanced expertise in commercial tech and private industry to offer a different perspective and advise senior Army leaders on solving military problems.

The three newly commissioned officers of Cohort 2 are Dane Knecht, chief technology officer of Cloudflare; Sam Pullara, managing director and chief technology officer of Sutter Hill Ventures; and Serkan Piantino, co-founder of Facebook AI Research and former vice president of products at Reddit.

That news release did not explicitly state that the three people were sworn in as lieutenant colonels, but a caption on a photograph released by the Army of the swearing-in ceremony used the lieutenant colonel title for them. We reached out to the Army to confirm the 2026 cohort received the rank of lieutenant colonel and will update this story if we hear back. 

Snopes has previously examined many claims about Meta, Palantir and OpenAI, including an allegation that Meta forced Facebook users to follow U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, a rumor that Palantir was creating a national database of U.S. citizens and a claim that an OpenAI artificial intelligence model lied to avoid being shut down. 

Sources