Pentagon technology chief Emil Michael faced a wave of condemnation after his office's official X account posted what critics called QAnon promotion.
The account posted an image Thursday afternoon of President Donald Trump seated beneath a giant, glowing letter Q, captioned "The Great Quantum Awakening." Words across the image read "Golden Age of Science" and "American Quantum Dominance."
The account, @DoWCTO, identifies itself as the official account of the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering. Michael leads that office and, according to his official biography, serves as the Department of War's chief technology officer.
The post also tagged the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and three other accounts. Its caption played on "the Great Awakening," the term QAnon followers use for a coming time when they believe the public will learn of Trump's battle against a "Deep State," according to the Anti-Defamation League.
"We've got the Pentagon posting QAnon slop on a verified government account. What an utterly humiliating time to live in this country," Jared Holt, a senior researcher at Open Measures, wrote on X.
"Oh. I guess we're back to the Q thing," wrote Garrett Archer, a former elections official who now works as a data and political analyst for ABC15 in Arizona.
"[T]he QAnon promotion is no longer subtle," journalist Aaron Rupar wrote.
"Um. This is Emil Michael's office, promoting Q under the guise of plausible deniability for the Department of Defense," wrote Karen Piper, an author and academic.
"You have GOT to be kidding me. This is despicable," wrote Jim Stewartson, who says he writes about "the psychological war on democracy."
"Emil Michael is a total psychopath," Stewartson added.
In June, the same account shared three other QAnon-inspired memes that appeared to celebrate Trump's plan to invest heavily in quantum computing, Mother Jones reported.
"Are you enjoying the show? Refill your popcorn… you'll love this next part," one of the memes read, according to the outlet.
Another read "Trust the plan, patriots," and a third showed an armed soldier inside a Q with the words "Where We Go One, We Go Quantum," Mother Jones reported.
The outlet explained that each line echoed a popular QAnon slogan, including "trust the plan," "enjoy the show," and "where we go one, we go all."
"We have nothing for you on this," Defense Department spokesperson Joe Loewy wrote to Mother Jones at the time.
The account has also posted an image of a Marine saluting Trump alongside the phrase "Trust the Plan," a scholar of conspiracy theories and extremism wrote in The Conversation.
In December 2019, the anonymous "Q" poster highlighted a meme on the message board 8kun showing cartoon frogs eating popcorn in a theater as Trump appeared on screen, an archived copy of the post shows. That image of Trump, with papers flying and his tie blowing sideways, appears to match the one posted Thursday.
As an Uber executive in 2014, Michael suggested at a private dinner that the company could spend "a million dollars" to dig into the personal lives of journalists who criticized it, NPR reported. He later apologized.
Michael left Uber in 2017 after an investigation into the company's practices, led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, reportedly recommended his departure, according to BGR.
The Senate confirmed Michael to his Pentagon post in May 2025 by a 54-43 vote, MeriTalk reported.