Spacex and two members of Elon Musk have become friends to win a crucial part of the Defense Shield of the “Golden Dome” missiles of President Donald Trump, said six family people with the matter.
Musk’s Rocket and Satellite Company is a partner of the Palantir software manufacturer and the Anduril drone builder in an attempt to build a key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has attracted a significant interest of the flourishing base of defense startups of the technological sector.
In his executive order on January 27, Trump cited a missile attack as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
The three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have been main political supporters of Trump. Musk has donated more than a quarter of one billion dollars to help choose Trump, and now serves as a special advisor to the president, working to reduce government expenditure through his government efficiency department.
Despite the positive signs of the Pentagon to the SpaceX group, some sources emphasized the decision process for Trump’s golden dome in its early stages. Its final structure and who is selected to work on it could change dramatically in the coming months.
The three companies with the senior officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in the last week to present their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites that surround the world to detect missiles and track their movement, the sources said.
A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would like to tear down enemy missiles, three of the sources said. The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the satellite weapon, these sources said.
One of the familiar sources with the conversations described them as “a deviation from the usual acquisition process. There is an attitude that the National Security and Defense community must be sensitive and poor for Elon Musk due to their route.”
Spacex and Musk have refused to comment if Musk is involved in any of the discussions or negotiations involving federal contracts with their businesses.
The Pentagon did not answer the detailed questions of Reuters, he only said that he will deliver “options to the president for his decision in line with the executive order and aligned with the orientation and deadlines of the White House.”
The White House, Spacex, Palantir and Anduril also did not answer the questions. After the publication, Musk responded to a publication about the history of Reuters in his social network X without elaborating: “This is not true.”
Subscription service
In an unusual turn, Spacex has proposed to establish its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the Government would pay access to technology, instead of owning the system directly.
The subscription model, which has not reported previously, could border some pentagon acquisition protocols, allowing the system to unfold faster, the two sources said. While the approach would not violate any rule, the government can be locked in a subscription and lose control over its development and ongoing prices, they added.
Some Pentagon officials have expressed Conns internally about trusting the subscription -based model for any part of the Golden Dome, two sources told Reuters. Such arrangement would be unusual for such a large and critical defense program.
The US Space Force General, Michael Guetlein, has been in conversations about Si Spacex should be the owner and operator of his part of the system, the two sources said. Other options include having the US itself and operating the system, or having the USA. While contractors handle operations. Guetlein did not respond to a request for comments.
The general withdrawn from the Air Force, Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a higher Musk Spacex advisor, has participated in the company’s recent discussions with high -level defense and intelligence leaders, the two sources said. O’Shaughnessy did not respond to comments requests.
If the group led by Spacex won a Golden Dome contract, it would be the biggest victory for Silicon Valley in the lucrative defense contracting industry and a blow to traditional contractors.
However, these long -standing contractors, such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing and RTX, are expected to be great players in the process, people familiar with their classmates said. Lockheed Martin presented a web page as part of its marketing efforts.
Many offers
The Pentagon has received interest from more than 180 companies interested in helping to develop and build the gold dome, according to an American official, including new defense companies such as Epir, Ursa Major and Navy. The members of the White House National Security Council were informed by a handful of companies about their capabilities, four sources said.
Number two of the Pentagon, former private capital investor Steve Feinberg, will be a key decision maker for Golden Dome, two US defense officials said.
Feinberg co -founded Cerberus Capital Management, which has invested in the avant -garde hypersonic missile industry but not in Spacex. Feinberg, who did not respond to a request for comments, has said that he would deflate all his interests in Cerberus when he joined the administration.
Some experts believe that Golden Dome’s general cost could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. The Pentagon established several deadlines for the capacities that will be delivered, starting with early 2026 to those delivered after 2030.
Laura Grego, director of research at the non -profit union of worried scientists, questioned the viability of said defense system since multiple studies have concluded that it is a “bad idea, expensive and vulnerable.”
“Such a system could be rejected by launching multiple weapons at the same time, pushing the required defense size of very large amounts, enhanced in the tens of thousands of satellites,” Grego said.
Spacex is launching for the part of the Golden Dome initiative called the “custody layer”, a satellite constellation that Wolder detects missiles, traces its trajectory and determines if they go to the United States, family sources.
Spacex has estimated that preliminary engineering and design work for the satellite custody layer would cost between $ 6 billion and $ 10 billion, two of the sources said. In the last five years, Spacex has launched hundreds of operative spy satellites and more recently several prototypes, which could be adapted to be used for the project, the sources said.
Reuters reviewed an internal memorandum of the Pentagon of the Secretary of Defense Peter Hegesh issued shortly before a deadline of February 28 until the leadership of the senior pentagon asking for initial proposals of Golden Dome and asking for the “accelerations of the deployment” or Rabo.
The period of time could give Spacex an advantage because the rocket fleet, including Falcon 9, and existing satellites that could be reused for the missile defense shield, said the family of people with the plan.
Despite the thesis advantages, some of the relatives with the discussions said it was not clear if the Spacex group could efficiently establish a system with new technology in a profitable way that can protect the United States from the attack.
“It remains to be seen if Spacex and these technological companies can achieve any of this,” said one of the sources. “They have never had to meet a complete system in which the nation will need to trust for its defense.”