PUBLISHED : 7 Feb 2025 at 13:44 WRITER: Pause A serviceman of the 25th Separate Airborne Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, launches a Shark reconnaissance drone, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the frontline town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Wednesday. (Photo: Reuters) NEW YORK — Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, said that the future of warfare is artificial intelligence (AI) and drones in a newly released video of his conversation last summer at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. "The current war in Ukraine is very much a drone war already," said Musk, 53, who also heads up Tesla Inc and the X social network, formerly Twitter. "If there's a major power war, it's very much going to be a drone war." The billionaire, who now plays a significant role in the US government via his close relationship with President Donald Trump, said the US needs to invest in drones and boost the rate of producing them at home. He was speaking in a fireside chat with Brigadier General Shane Reeves, the Military Academy's Dean of the Academic Board, on Aug 16th. Musk posted a link to the 40-minute conversation to X late on Thursday. Musk, who said he often goes to sleep listening to audiobooks of military history, cautioned against complacency by national leaders. "Countries pretty much are geared up to fight the last war, not the next war," he told an audience of armed forces personnel.