At Shield AI, a Young Product Guru Fights for God & Country

Armor Harris, a protege of Elon Musk, aims to be at the head of the drone warfare pack

After a long day working on his prized new product, an autonomous fighter jet, Armor Harris was ready for a beer. As we sat at a cafe near the company’s Dallas headquarters in early March, the 33-year-old product guru at defense tech firm Shield AI gazed at the storm clouds gathering over the flat Texas farmlands and told me why he makes weapons.

“According to the Bible, you realize we’re in the last couple of years here in the grand scheme of things,” he said.

Harris has seen the signs — the creation of modern Israel, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence — and believes there’s a “reasonable” chance that Jesus returns in our lifetime, and will be supporting nations that are on the “good side” when the end of the world comes.

“Ultimately, it’s one of the reasons — maybe the main reason — why I’ve become passionate about working on defense for the last couple of years,” he said. Later, he added: “If you have pretty strong faith in the way that things are going to go, then would you not want to work on the things that will be most impactful to the course of human history?”

Harris, 33, is not a preacher. He’s an engineer — and an exceptionally talented one, according to colleagues who worked with him at SpaceX, where he spent a decade and won the confidence of Elon Musk. He joined Shield AI two years ago as its senior vice president of aircraft, charged with fixing and revitalizing the product line-up of an eleven-year-old AI drone startup that had spent most of its life in the shadow of better-funded, better-known competitors.