Abruptly steps down

Pentagon’s tech innovation head abruptly steps down

Doug Beck has been a critical link between the Defense Department and Silicon Valley.

By Daniel Lippman, Felicia Schwartz and Jack Detsch

The influential head of the Defense Innovation Unit — the Pentagon’s in-house tech incubator — abruptly stepped down on Monday, removing the last high-profile Biden administration holdover at the Defense Department and severing a key link with Silicon Valley.

Doug Beck, a former vice president at Apple, said Monday in a goodbye email that it would be his last day, according to two people familiar with the matter. He did not provide any reason for his departure.

The Pentagon has appointed temporary leadership, said one of the people, who like others, was granted anonymity to discuss staffing information not yet public.

The Defense Department and Beck did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Beck, who had run the Pentagon’s tech accelerator since 2023, was responsible for updating the Defense Department’s commercial tech. He made a point of connecting with Silicon Valley innovators who had shied away from the defense industry before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin gave him the ability to report directly to the Pentagon’s front office in an effort to speed up the agency’s sclerotic tech acquisition.

Beck pushed the Pentagon to find high-tech solutions more cheaply. He also sent innovation unit representatives in Europe and the Pacific to collect lessons from Ukraine and China.

Beck’s departure comes just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed three top military officials: Defense Intelligence Agency chief Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, Navy Reserve chief Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore and head of Naval Special Warfare Command Rear Adm. Milton Sands III.

Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Allvin on Tuesday also announced his surprise retirement, less than halfway into his four-year term in the service’s top military job.

It’s not clear whether the in-house Pentagon agency, first set up in the later years of the Obama administration, will have the same level of pull without Beck.