WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signed a new memo creating a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM) for autonomy, as part of a high-level effort to keep pace with adversaries’ drone programs, Breaking Defense has learned.
That role, which would report directly to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, would subsume a significant portion of unmanned systems efforts currently underway at the service level — including all ground vehicles, all small air vehicles and almost all sea vehicles — under one “czar.”
Known as DRPM-UxS, the job will serve as “the single joint integrator for all unmanned and autonomous system programs” within the Pentagon, per the memo, which was signed Monday and obtained by Breaking Defense.
“Adversaries collectively produce millions of unmanned systems each year across all Domains,” Hegseth wrote in the memo. “While global military unmanned systems production has skyrocketed over the last three years, the United States has been slow to field these capabilities at scale. Drones and autonomous systems are the most consequential battlefield innovation of this generation. The [Pentagon] must move at the speed this moment demands.”
Key points from the memo include:
- All UAS groups 1-3 will go under the DRPM-UxS. That excludes major unmanned airframes, such as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft.
- All autonomous ground vehicles will go under the DRPM-UxS.
- All unmanned surface vessels will go under the DRPM-UxS, with the exception of the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) program.
- Underwater unmanned vessels will be worked “in coordination” with Vice Adm. Robert Gaucher, the submarine DRPM, who currently has control of part of that portfolio.
- Unmanned autonomy/artificial intelligence/swarming software programs, as well as the current “marketplaces” set up for unmanned systems throughout the department will go under the DRPM-UxS.
- The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) will “serve as the primary industry engagement interface between the DoW and commercial industry for all unmanned and autonomous systems programs within the DRPM-UxS portfolio,” per the memo.
Two existing offices — the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG) and Joint Interagency Task Force 401 — will become deputy offices under the new DRPM-UxS. JIATF 401, which currently leads the effort to develop Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, will see its responsibilities expand to countering all drone systems, regardless of domain.
“This oversight will not change the current organizational alignment and placement of JIATF-401 and DAWG personnel and billets,” per the memo.
“The DRPM-UxS will take precedence on all acquisition matters related to execution of UxS programs after the Sec War and the DepSecWar,” the memo reads. “The Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment (USW(A&S)), as the Defense Acquisition Executive (DAE), will support the DRPM-UxS in execution of acquisition authorities, including, as necessary, use of streamlined acquisition authorities to rapidly, efficiently, and effectively deliver UxS capabilities.”
No individual is named as the new DRPM, nor is a date given for when an individual should be in place. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The DRPM role first came about following the appointment of Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead the Pentagon’s Golden Dome initiative in July 2025. Since then, the DRPM model has expanded twice, with Gaucher in charge of all submarine efforts and Gen. Dale White taking over a portfolio of key Air Force efforts, including the B-21 bomber, F-47 fighter and Sentinel ICBM.
The goal of the new setup is to cut through bureaucracy, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey told reporters in December.
However, Duffey said then that the DRPM roles are not cookie cutter in design. For instance, he said the Golden Dome DPRM role differs a bit from White’s construct since the initiative is knitting together an array of different sensors, launchers and other weapons from across the services to provide a homeland air defense system.
“Golden Dome, in and of itself, is just a unique animal in terms of the fact that it’s more of an architecture that’s taking constituent systems that already have program managers in the munitions and the space-based capabilities and integrating things,” Duffey said in December.
It’s possible the new autonomy-focused DPRM-UxS may more closely follow that of the Golden Dome DPRM, since each service has a variety of programs in the air, on the ground and in the water.
It’s unclear what impact the creation of a new DRPM will have on the existing offices at the service level. The Army revamped its acquisition setup last year creating six overarching Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs), moving autonomy under PAE Maneuver Air.
