Ex-Pentagon official Emil Michael vows revenge on Uber investors

A newly released podcast interview provides a revealing look into the thinking of former Uber executive and current senior Pentagon official Emil Michael, capturing both his perspective on a major government contracting dispute and his lingering resentment toward the investors who forced his departure from the ride-hailing giant. The conversation, recorded before the Department of Defense’s negotiations with Anthropic publicly collapsed, offers candid reflections on his ouster from Uber and frames the current AI policy clash in stark national security terms.

When asked directly if he was pushed out alongside former CEO Travis Kalanick, Michael replied, “Effectively.” His resignation preceded Kalanick’s by eight days in 2017, following a workplace investigation into cultural issues at Uber. Although not personally accused of harassment, the probe led by former Attorney General Eric Holder concluded he should leave. Kalanick was subsequently ousted by a shareholder revolt led by investors like Benchmark. Michael’s bitterness remains palpable. “I’ll never forget that, nor forgive,” he stated when questioned about holding a grudge.

Both men believe their removal fundamentally altered Uber’s trajectory, specifically dooming its ambitious autonomous driving division. Michael argues the investor group prioritized short-term financial protection over long-term vision. “They wanted to preserve their embedded gains, rather than try to make this a trillion dollar company,” he said. Kalanick has similarly asserted that Uber’s self-driving program was competitive with industry leader Waymo at the time. Uber eventually sold its Advanced Technologies Group to Aurora in 2020 in what many saw as a distressed sale. With Waymo’s robotaxis now operating in multiple cities, the question of what might have been clearly still troubles the former executives.

Kalanick has since channeled his efforts into new ventures, recently unveiling a stealth robotics startup called Atoms and revealing he is the largest investor in an autonomous vehicle startup called Pronto. Michael, meanwhile, is embroiled in a high-stakes policy battle. In the interview, he details the Pentagon’s standoff with Anthropic, an approved large language model vendor. He describes a procurement environment so dense with rules that “we almost choke on them,” arguing that Anthropic seeks to impose its own ethical policies atop the government’s existing legal framework.

Michael raised a pointed security concern, citing an Anthropic report about Chinese firms using model distillation techniques to replicate AI capabilities. Under China’s civil-military fusion laws, he contends, the People’s Liberation Army could potentially access a fully capable, unrestricted version of Anthropic’s model, while the DoD would be limited by the company’s own guardrails. “I’d be one-armed, tied behind my back against an Anthropic model that’s fully capable , by an adversary,” Michael said, calling the situation “totally Orwellian.” He challenged the company, asking why an American champion wouldn’t want the Defense Department to have the best tools available.

The conflict has now moved to the courts. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk, and the government filed a brief arguing that integrating Anthropic’s technology into war-fighting systems creates “unacceptable risk,” partly because the company could theoretically alter or disable its tech during a conflict. Anthropic responded with sworn declarations, arguing the government’s case is based on technical misunderstandings and that the alleged ability to interfere with operations is not technically possible. A hearing on the matter is scheduled in San Francisco.