• Palmer Luckey's startup Anduril scored a $642 million deal for anti-drone tech in Marine Corps bases.
• The 10-year contract is meant to help fight smaller drones like the exploding ones in Ukraine.
• The Defense Department said Anduril was chosen out of 10 total bids.

Defense startup Anduril clinched a $642 million contract on Friday to help the US Marine Corps fight smaller drones at its bases.

Anduril's new deal is for the Marine Corps Installation-Counter small Unmanned Aircraft Systems program, which is essentially a network of anti-drone defenses for bases and facilities.

The announcement comes after Anduril scored a separate five-year $200 million agreement in November to bring counter-drone tech to the Marine Air Defense Integrated System. This mobile air defense system can be mounted on vehicles like Humvees.

Like with the MADIS, Anduril's offering for this new contract is to fight smaller drones, which the US military classifies as Group 1 and Group 2.

Such drones are typically no heavier than 55 pounds and fly at a maximum altitude of about 3,500 feet, like the exploding commercial drones used in the war in Ukraine.

When the Corps first opened its contract in April 2024, it warned of a "security capability gap" for dealing with these smaller drones at its bases.

"The sUAS threat poses unique challenges to military installations when compared to those of operational forces," the Corps wrote.

The Defense Department said on Friday that 10 companies had submitted proposals for the contract.

With Anduril scoring the deal, the department said that 80% of the work until 2035 would be done in Costa Mesa, California, home to Anduril's headquarters. The rest is expected to be performed in Washington, D.C., and other Marine Corps facilities.

The announcement did not specify what type of product or how many systems Anduril will deliver.

Press teams for Anduril and the Marine Corps did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider outside regular business hours.

One of Anduril's main offerings for fighting smaller drones, Anvil, features a quadcopter that flies out from a portable storage box to track and crash into enemy systems. It can also be fitted with explosives to attack bigger targets.

Additionally, the company sells electronic warfare jammers called Pulsar, which it's already providing to the Pentagon as part of a $250 million deal from October.

Anduril, founded in 2017 by Oculus creator Palmer Luckey, has become a rising star in the defense industry as it emphasizes ready-made designs that can be produced at scale. In that sense, it hopes to reuse the same design to bid for multiple contracts instead of creating each one specifically for a single deal.

The firm is also working with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and runs its products on an AI software called Lattice to survey the battlefield and identify threats.

One of its biggest scores so far is a $22 billion contract with the US Army to provide soldiers with mixed-reality goggles. The contract was originally awarded to Microsoft but later ceded to Anduril.

The firm hopes to expand quickly. In August, Anduril raised $1.5 billion to build a 5 million-square-foot factory in Ohio that it said would "hyperscale" production.

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• Mark Carney is expected to replace Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the coming days.
• The Harvard graduate and former Goldman Sachs banker headed two central banks.
• Canada's ruling Liberal Party elected Carney to replace Trudeau on Sunday.

Mark Carney, the former governor of Canada's and England's central banks, is expected to replace Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just as the country faces a chapter of uncertainty over tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.

The Harvard graduate and former Goldman Sachs banker was elected as the leader of Canada's ruling Liberal Party on Sunday. Carney's predecessor, Trudeau, said he would step down as party leader in January.

Carney, 59, is expected to be sworn in as prime minister in the coming days. An election to determine the next prime minister must happen by October, but it could be called sooner.

Until then, the country will have to navigate Trump's 25% tariffs, which he imposed on March 4 but delayed until April 2.

The tariff turnaround, combined with Trump's comments on making Canada the 51st state of the US, has ignited a defensive fervor in Canada.

Carney referenced Canada's relationship with the US during his victory speech on Sunday.

"I know that these are dark days. Dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust," Carney said.

Carney's financial sector background

Carney has never held political office but has a deep history in the financial sector.

He was born in Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories, and graduated from Harvard, where he played ice hockey. He spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs, working at the investment bank's offices in London, Tokyo, New York, and Toronto.

Carney led two central banks at pivotal moments.

After leaving Goldman Sachs in 2003, Carney served as deputy governor of the Bank of Canada. He was made governor in 2008, at the start of the global financial crisis. He was the first non-British governor of the Bank of England from 2013 through 2020, where he guided the bank's response to Brexit.

Since leaving the Bank of England, Carney has held a mix of commercial and international roles. He was appointed vice chair of Brookfield Asset Management in 2020 and was made chair after the division was spun out as a new company in 2022.

In 2021, Carney became a board member of Stripe, a digital payments company. He was named as the chair of Bloomberg's board in 2023.

That is on top of his work with international organizations. Before he left the Bank of England, Carney was appointed UN special envoy on climate action and finance in 2019. In 2021, Carney launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a global climate-finance coalition.

In January, Carney said while announcing his leadership bid for the Liberal Party that he had resigned from all his commercial and international roles.

What he thinks about Trump's tariff threats

In his victory speech Sunday, Carney didn't hold back on Trump's tariff threats. At times, he spoke as though he were facing off against the American president rather than his expected opponent, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada's Conservative Party.

Carney threatened to impose dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs that would have "maximum impact in the United States."

"My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect, and until they can join us in making credible and reliable commitments to free and fair trade," Carney said on Sunday.

Carney didn't hold back on Trump during his speech.

"Trump, as we know, has put, as the prime minister just said, unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living," Carney said. "He's attacking Canadian families, workers, and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed, and we won't."

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