The Kill Cloud as Corporate Takeover: The Convergence of The Military, Venture Capitalism and Technology Start-Ups
2026-04-11 , Salon
Language: English

Military systems are increasingly traversing private infrastructure while financed by venture capital. Tech executives can now exert influence within the Kill Cloud to protect their interests. The workshop examines machinations fostering and reshaping global power dynamics, embodied militarisation, AI, warfare, and resistance.


The infrastructure of military control is no longer owned and operated under the sole domain of the military and its national security or intelligence partners, it is now operated predominantly by Silicon Valley elites. This is the first time in history that executives from tech corporations own and can control military weapons infrastructure without military or federal government input. We saw this during the Crimea Drone Attack in 2022, Musk refused a Ukrainian government request ordering shutdown of Starlink satellite service. This privatised, networked military ecosystem – described by Lisa Ling and Cian Westmoreland as the Kill Cloud – dominates warfare through globally connected technologies. The workshop brings together Lisa Ling, Tatiana Bazzichelli, and Joana Moll to analyse the Kill Cloud’s role in fostering technofascism and reshaping power. Ling focuses on the expansive nature of technology throughout multiple military domain and the machinations of domination by Silicon Valley. Joana Moll presents how digital technologies inscribe ideologies through the body, examining the convergence of labor, leisure, and militarisation within the body-device assemblage. Bazzichelli presents the Disruption Network Institute, a Berlin-based initiative investigating AI as a lethal weapon and researching the ethical, social, and political effects of algorithmic warfare, surveillance, and data control. The aim is to engage participants in developing strategies of resistance.

Lisa Ling (Whistleblower, Technologist, former Technical Sergeant, US Air Force Drone Surveillance Programme, US)

Joana Moll (Artist and Researcher, Professor of Networks, Academy of Media Arts Cologne, ES/DE).

Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founder and Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE)