Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf has defended the defence technology company's record of winning large US government contracts, responding to ethics questions over co-founder Palmer Luckey's close relationship with the Trump administration as the company competes for lucrative Pentagon work.
"We've done incredibly well under [President Joe] Biden," Schimpf told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Thursday. "That was one of the biggest ramps that we've had as a company. I'm a lifelong Dem and have great relationships on both sides of the aisle of this."
On Oct. 6, Anduril announced a shipyard contract worth up to $2.9 billion, announced a few days after Luckey was named to a Department of Defense group known as Project Meridian. The company also won a multi-year DOD contract worth up to $20 billion in March.
The appointments of both Luckey and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to the initiative have raised concerns over whether executives whose companies receive billions in government contracts should play an active role in shaping defense strategy.
"The reality is that the [Department of Defense] has just an incredibly structured process for how they evaluate all these incoming bids," Schimpf said. "So everything goes through these very competitive processes, and we win based on the merits."
CNBC reported this week that Musk has contributed more than $276 million to Republican groups since July. Luckey, who helped raise money for Trump's 2020 campaign, has donated more than $500,000 to Republican candidates and GOP-aligned groups this year, according to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission filings.