The U.S. Senate voted in May 2025 to confirm Emil Michael as the Department of War’s undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. Michael was Uber’s chief business officer between 2013 and 2017 and previously served as chief operating officer of social media analytics company Klout. A former White House fellow, he served as a special assistant to the secretary of defense and led projects in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan during his time at the Pentagon.