Anduril staff gave Pentagon overseers 3x Lockheed's. Lockheed got 108x

Short answer: In the 2026 cycle, employees of Anduril gave $218,050 to members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the people who write the defense budget. Employees of Lockheed Martin gave $72,015. The Pentagon paid Lockheed $119.1 billion in FY2025-26 and Anduril $1.1 billion. The new money is working the room, and the old money is barely in it.

TL;DR: We joined every Armed Services member's 2026 FEC donor employers against the companies the Pentagon actually paid in FY2025-26, and Anduril staff reached 33 of 84 committee seats, more than any other contractor. Per dollar of Pentagon money received, Anduril's people gave about $197 per $1 million; Lockheed's gave about 60 cents, a gap of over 300x (our estimate). Ranking member Adam Smith (D-WA) took $207,997 from employees of Pentagon-paid firms, 31.1% of all his employer-identified money, the highest share of 236 committee seats we checked.

Key numbers

What	Number	Source, checked Oct 28 2026
Anduril employee gifts to Armed Services members, 2026 cycle	$218,050 to 33 seats	OpenFEC + our join
Lockheed Martin employee gifts to the same members	$72,015 to 4 seats	OpenFEC + our join
Pentagon obligations FY2025-26: Lockheed / Anduril	$119.1B / $1.11B	USAspending
Adam Smith: gifts from staff of Pentagon-paid firms	$207,997 (31.1%)	OpenFEC + USAspending, our join
House Armed Services, share of employer money from DoD-paid firms	7.1% ($1.76M of $24.9M)	Our join
House Energy and Commerce, share from HHS-paid employers	1.7%	Our join

The defense-tech startups outgive the primes where it counts

Lockheed Martin is the biggest defense contractor on earth. In FY2025-26 the Department of Defense obligated $119.1 billion to it, about 108 times the $1.1 billion it obligated to Anduril, per USAspending.

On the committees that decide the budget, the order flips. Anduril employees gave $218,050 to 33 Armed Services members. Palantir employees gave $154,300 to 11. Microsoft employees gave $116,082 to 10. Lockheed employees gave $72,015 to 4.

The pattern in the receipts is the giveaway: rows of $10,500 per member, which is three maxed-out $3,500 gifts. That is a small number of senior people writing the biggest legal checks, to both parties, across the whole committee.

How we got this, and what it does not say

We pulled each committee member's top 100 donor employers for the 2026 cycle from the FEC's API, then matched those names exactly against every company the overseen agency paid in FY2025-26 on USAspending. We did it for five committees and 236 seats, not just defense, so there is a baseline.

Two limits matter. First, this is employee money, not corporate PAC money: Lockheed runs one of the biggest PACs in Washington, and PAC checks are not in these totals. Second, exact name matching misses subsidiaries and typos, so every number here is a floor. None of this is illegal. Individuals can give to whoever they like; the story is who chooses to.

Our read: the primes buy access through PACs and lobbyists, an institutional channel. The startups do it the founder way, with personal checks from the people at the top. Same goal, different playbook, and the second one is growing.

The math: 60 cents versus $197

Divide employee gifts by Pentagon dollars received and the gap gets absurd. Lockheed's staff gave about $0.60 to the committee for every $1 million the Pentagon paid Lockheed. Anduril's staff gave about $197 per $1 million. Palantir, paid $40.4 million on the obligations we matched, comes out even higher, at roughly $3,800 per $1 million. These ratios are our estimates from the two public datasets.

Why would a company getting 1% of Lockheed's money put three times as many dollars in front of the committee? Because the incumbents already have the programs of record, the bases, the jobs in every district. A challenger has none of that, so it has to win the argument one member at a time.

Who got Anduril checks, by the receipts

The 33 seats cover both parties and both chambers. Pat Ryan (D-NY) led with $18,050 from nine gifts. Then a run of members at $10,500 each: Adam Smith, Gabe Vasquez (D-NM), George Whitesides (D-CA), Derek Tran (D-CA), Pat Harrigan (R-NC) and Derek Schmidt (R-KS). Eugene Vindman (D-VA) took $8,000.

The list also includes committee chair Mike Rogers (R-AL), Senate Armed Services chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) and ranking member Jack Reed (D-RI). That is the full leadership of both committees. Whatever you think of the company, its people have done the most thorough job of any contractor at being known to everyone who writes the defense bill.

For builders in any regulated market, the lesson is the same: the incumbent's moat is a relationship map, and it can be redrawn by people willing to show up.

Adam Smith: 31 cents of every employer dollar

Adam Smith, the top Democrat on House Armed Services, took $207,997 from employees of firms the Pentagon paid. That is 31.1% of his $669,072 in employer-identified money, the highest share of any of the 236 seats in our pull.

The top names: Palantir $38,500, Microsoft $36,597, Lockheed Martin $28,500, Blue Origin $17,500, Boeing $15,100. His Seattle-area district is home to plenty of Microsoft, Boeing and Blue Origin workers, so some of this is simply local employers. Palantir, based in Denver, is not one of them.

Palantir money has become radioactive for some Democrats. In February, Jason Crow and John Hickenlooper said they would give Palantir-linked cash to immigrant rights groups, per the Colorado Sun. Our numbers are receipts as filed, not net of any later donations away.

Defense is where the overlap lives

Across all five committees, $3.39 million of $96.2 million in itemized employer money came from staff of firms the overseen agency paid: 3.5%. House Armed Services ran 7.1% and Senate Armed Services 4.8%. Homeland Security was 2.4%, Energy and Commerce 1.7% and Transportation 1.6%, and much of those last two is university and hospital staff.

After Smith, the biggest totals were Rob Wittman (R-VA) at $114,505 (Lockheed $40,505), Jen Kiggans (R-VA) at $93,920, Pat Ryan (D-NY) at $74,550 (Palantir $28,500, Anduril $18,050) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) at $73,161. Highest shares among members with $100K+ itemized: Mazie Hirono 22.9%, Pat Harrigan 18.4%, Joe Courtney 18.2%.

What this means for you

If you build in defense tech, the lesson is plain: the newcomers winning budget fights are the ones whose leaders show up in person, on every seat that matters, in both parties. If you vote, download the CSV, find your member, and see which contractors their donors work for.

Every row of our join is in the data file below, so people and agents can rerun it. For background, read our defense-tech valuation piece, our police surveillance earmarks join, and more on the news desk and politics.

Want this kept current for a company you sell to or compete with? Company Watch flags its new federal contracts, grants and lobbying filings as they land, for $99 a month. We keep fixing it at no extra cost until it does what it promises.

Sources

• FEC, OpenFEC API, 2026-cycle receipts by employer, pulled Oct 27 2026
• USAspending, recipients by awarding agency, FY2025-26, pulled Oct 27 2026
• unitedstates/congress-legislators, committee membership, Oct 27 2026
• Colorado Sun, Hickenlooper and Crow to donate Palantir cash, Feb 9 2026
• NOTUS, defense contractor PAC money to Congress, May 2026