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Comment by bluegatty | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Apple and Google have not blurred any lines, they are not defence contractors in any way.

They are very large tech companies which will invariably have some relationship with every industry.

Apple had some early contracts in defence, Google's early research grands were National Science Foundation, but that's not defence companies.

'Boeing' blurs the lines definitely - they are 35% defence contractor mostly civilian airline agency and didn't really start as military.

It's important to understand that every company of a certain scale exists a bit differently than others, and in some industries, like aviation, will be considered 'strategic' and they're going to work with 'national interests' in a lot of ways, that may involved some kind of defence contracting.

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You should read the actual post?

For Microsoft, the first and largest contract mentioned in the table just below the fold on that page is for an IVAS system. Microsoft had been basing this off their HoloLens system but was a distinct product (they weren't just sending over the normal HoloLens and expecting that they were gonna work in the field). This contract was then transitioned to Anduril. But just saying of Microsoft that "they are not defence contractors in any way" is hard to reconcile with the facts of having a large contract to _develop a new product_ for the military ... even if it turned out to never have been used.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/07/08/...

https://www.army.mil/article/290020/ivas_a_solution_to_a_tri...

I see what you're trying to say - but MS is not a defence contractor. The amount of business they do selling 'Windows' and 'Azure' to DoD is 100x whatever little tiny bit of co-research they are doing otherwise. It's not relevant to their business, that's just 'a tiny project that happens to cross into some field'.

I understand that technically, it's a project that can be used for defence, but if you say that MS is a 'defence contractor' - then you also have to say:

MS is an 'Investment Bank' - almost 50% of MSFT's Operations are financial. Their financial opts are bigger that most investment banks.

MS is a 'Healthcare Company'

MS is a 'Gaming Company'

MS is an 'Entertainment Company'

MS is XXX, YYY and ZZZ etc.

better: "MS is a Tech Conglomerate that sells Windows (OS), Office, Outlook, Sales and Ops SaaS, and has Bing some other services, with XBox as major subdivision. They have a major financial footprint, and also have research activities in other sectors."

Palantir is partially Defence contractor even if a minority of their business is defence, it's a strategic business line for them, and it's material to their existence.

> I understand that technically, it's a project that can be used for defence

No, it's a project commissioned by and built for defense needs. It's not that someone at the DoD saw how to creatively re-use an existing civilian project.

You're right, I misstated - I meant to say 'dual use contract'; but my point is the same.

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