Open feuding between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who until recently were close friends and political allies, has shone a particular light on how heavily reliant the U.S. government, and America’s armed forces especially, has become on SpaceX. Yesterday, Trump alluded to possibly cancelling contracts with and ending subsidies to companies that Musk owns. Musk, in part, responded by threatening to curtail some of SpaceX’s most critical government work, which he later walked back.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote earlier today on his Truth Social platform. “I was surprised that [former President Joe] Biden didn’t do it!”
Musk has been increasingly attacking Trump’s policies in the past few days on X, primarily over sweeping proposed budget and tax legislation called the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the bill, if signed into law, will add $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit. After Trump took office in January, Musk was brought on as a special government employee, ostensibly to lead a cost-cutting initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk publicly left that role last week.
“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk subsequently wrote on X.
“Good Advice. Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon,” Musk later wrote in a response to another user on X who had warned him against acting too hastily.
Dragon is a family of space capsules that support the International Space Station (ISS), and is currently the only reliable U.S. vehicle for astronauts to make that journey. It is an absolutely critical capability for NASA, especially since relations with the Russians, who also inhabit the station, have plummeted since the invasion of Ukraine.
Overall, it remains to be seen exactly what action Trump may or may not take, or how Musk might then respond. Any actual tit-for-tat action would be impacted by a host of legal and other factors, as well.
If the Trump administration does move to cancel deals with SpaceX, in particular, it could have serious ramifications for U.S. national security, and especially the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus, which relies very heavily on the firm for space launches and space-based communications services. The company is further known to be working on secretive unique sensing capabilities in space for the U.S. government and has been widely expected to play an important role in Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative. As noted earlier, SpaceX’s Dragon family of spacecraft is also absolutely essential to NASA’s spaceflight operations.
Here is a better idea of what’s at stake:
Space Access
Today, SpaceX is by far the top space launch provider globally, dominating the orbital access marketplace. Last year, the company carried out 134 orbital launches using its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, more than everyone else in the world combined, according to a report in January from SpaceNews. SpaceX’s launches were responsible for a whopping 84 percent of the total satellites put into orbit in 2024, according to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) think tank.
SpaceX’s huge share of the global space access market is reflected in contracts with the U.S. military. Just in April, U.S. Space Forces’ Space Systems Command (SSC) announced it had awarded SpaceX a new contract worth nearly $6 billion for 28 launches. At that time, the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture company, and Blue Origin, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, also received contracts worth close to $5.4 billion (for 19 launches) and $2.4 billion (for seven launches), respectively. These contracts also highlight the significantly lower cost per launch that SpaceX offers compared to its current competitors, helped in no small part by its use of reusable rocket boosters. This massive difference in cost means that SpaceX’s services are only replaceable, as far as long-term launch planning and budgeting goes, at a much higher price tag.
A particularly important portion of SpaceX’s launches are in support of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which is formally within the Department of Defense, but also has a close relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As America’s top satellite intelligence arm, NRO’s work is key to U.S. national security and is extremely sensitive. The very existence of the office was only publicly acknowledged in 1992. SpaceX Falcon 9s have been used in five launches for NRO this year already. This is on top of six launches for the office last year.
Beyond spy satellites, the U.S. military has used SpaceX rockets to launch other types of payloads into orbit, including secretive X-37B mini-space shuttles.
As an aside to the more traditional space launch services that SpaceX provides to the U.S. military, the company has also been working with the Air Force and Space Force in recent years on the possibility of sending cargo, and even personnel, rapidly from one location to another on Earth via space. SpaceX’s Starship, a reusable two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) platform in development primarily for space travel applications beyond Earth, has been raised as a potential option for this proposed “Rocket Cargo” mission. This also highlights broader interest from the U.S. military in potential suborbital space capabilities.
Space-Based Communications
In parallel to its surging dominance in the space launch market, SpaceX Starlink has secured a preeminent position in the satellite internet and communications arena in recent years. America’s armed forces have steadily become a major user of Starlink, as well as its more secure government-focused cousin, Starshield.
“I don’t think you could take 10 steps without tripping over a Starshield terminal,” Mark Kitz, head of the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications, and Network (C3N), said at the 2024 AFCEA TechNet Augusta conference in August 2024, according to Defense News. “I would say the Army is very committed to pLEO [proliferated satellite constellations in low Earth orbit] and Starshield.”
Kitz was referring here specifically to his experience at a recent Army Project Convergence capstone event. Since 2020, the service has been using these events to test, integrate, and network together new and improved systems and capabilities in increasingly more operationally representative conditions as part of its broader modernization efforts.
Beyond basic ground-based terminals, Starlink/Starshield capabilities have been increasingly integrated into U.S. military aircraft and warships, including the Marine Corps’ new VH-92 Patriot presidential helicopters and the Navy aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. The space-based network can be used to help with a variety of day-to-day military tasks, as you can read more about here. The U.S. military has also demonstrated how the network could be used to transmit targeting data and otherwise support tactical operations, though this presents operational security questions that need to be addressed.
Overall, Starlink/Starshield offers high-bandwidth, global connectivity that is far less reliant on terrestrial infrastructure than satellite communications networks have been historically. By using a very large constellation of relatively small satellites, Starlink/Starshield is also more resilient in the face of attacks or other hazards, something that is of particular value to the U.S. military as it stares down an ever-growing array of anti-satellite threats. American officials now regularly stress that space should be expected to be an active warfighting domain in future conflicts, especially high-end fights against opponents like China.
Starlink/Starshield has had a revolutionizing impact on global connectivity, for military and non-military purposes alike. It has been in increasing use elsewhere across the U.S. government, as well as elsewhere worldwide, including support of law enforcement and disaster response operations.
Additional use cases continue to steadily emerge, such as Ukraine’s use of the space-based network to control uncrewed surface vessels (USV), including explosive-laden kamikaze types. Starlink has also been a vital tool for Ukrainian forces, as well as the country’s government overall, for general communications purposes. At the same time, SpaceX and Musk have faced significant criticism in the past over limiting some Ukrainian use of the network. This, in turn, has also highlighted broader concerns over the company’s ability to block access to the constellation.
‘Bleeding-Edge’ Space-Based Capabilities Development
Beyond space-based communications, SpaceX has emerged as a direct provider, not just a transporter, of more secretive orbital capabilities to the U.S. military. This includes a reported constellation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites for NRO, which strongly appears to be tied to work the office has been doing to establish a persistent, all-seeing Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) and mapping radar capability.
GMTI is a mode found on certain radars used to discriminate between moving targets on the ground and static ones. Radars with GMTI functionality can then track the moving targets’ activity over time. GMTI-capable radars are usually also able to produce synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, which are highly detailed image-like maps of the surface below, and which can be captured even through cloud cover, smoke, and dust, and at night. Overlaying GMTI data on top of SAR maps provides additional context for the radar tracks that can help with intelligence exploitation and refining collection areas.
As TWZ wrote following reports last year about SpaceX’s work in this realm:
“Regardless of the exact capabilities of the satellites that SpaceX is reportedly building for NRO, when they might be operational, and whether this is tied to the Space Force’s GMTI plans, the benefits of a constellation concept are clear. Historically, some of the biggest limitations of spy satellites have been their inability to be everywhere they need to at once and the relatively slow speed at which they can be retasked. The movements of traditional spy satellites are also predictable and countries with the means to monitor them can closely tailor their activities according to when such an asset is overhead.”
“In turn, low Earth orbit spy satellites have limitations on the kinds of intelligence they can gather and in what contexts. It can be difficult to use them to support very time-sensitive operations or to provide a more on-demand source of additional information for forces right at the tactical edge of the battlespace. As noted, Reuters‘ report says that supporting tactical ground operations is a major driving force behind NRO’s acquisition of the new distributed constellation from SpaceX.”
“In contrast, a larger, distributed constellation would have the ability to monitor huge swathes of the Earth simultaneously, and depending on the size of the constellation, at least far more persistently to seamlessly. This could make it difficult, if not impossible, for an opponent to hide activities of interest. A very low revisit rate, or even eliminating revisit rate altogether, could even open up the possibility of continuous ‘streaming’ coverage of a location from low Earth orbit. This would also be essential for persistent GMTI coverage that tracks ground movements in real time that will actually be high enough in fidelity to guide weapons onto those tracks.”
The U.S. military is now working to establish space-based air moving target indicator (AMTI) capabilities, which are akin to GMTI, but for aerial targets, as well. This capability is set to augment and one day supplant airborne early warning and control aircraft in the U.S. inventory. America’s armed forces are also moving to put distributed constellations of smaller satellites in orbit to help provide enhanced early warning and general situational awareness, especially about incoming missile attacks, as well as track those threats for potential intercept attempts. As noted already in talking about Starlink/Starshield’s distributed nature, constellations of this kind are also more resilient in the face of losses due to attacks and other hazards in space. They also have the potential to provide continuous, uninterrupted coverage across the entire globe.
Golden Dome
The U.S. military’s efforts to expand its space-based ISR capabilities, as well as underlying data-sharing networks, also now align with the vision Trump has laid out for his Golden Dome missile defense initiative. Especially with its ability to launch a lot of payloads at the absolute cheapest price, as well as existing contracts, capacity, and experience, SpaceX has already looked set to play a major role in Golden Dome.
SpaceX, together with defense contractors Anduril and Palantir, “met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement,” Reuters reported in April, citing unnamed sources. “A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down.”
“The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites,” the Reuters‘ story added. “In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a ‘subscription service’ in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright. The subscription model, which has not been previously reported, could skirt some Pentagon procurement protocols allowing the system to be rolled out faster, … While the approach would not violate any rules, the government may then be locked into a subscription and lose control over its ongoing development and pricing.”
As mentioned, new constellations consisting of hundreds, if not thousands, of additional satellites will also need to be put into orbit in the first place, which again highlights SpaceX’s aforementioned dominance in the space launch sector.
The Dragon Spacecraft
Though not a military capability, the Dragon family of spacecraft is another very important aspect of SpaceX’s contracts with the U.S. government, as highlighted by Musk’s immediate retort to Trump’s comments yesterday. There are versions of Dragon designed to carry cargo or astronauts, and they are a key means for NASA of getting both types of payloads to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
The Dragon family’s role has become even more important since Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Since then, U.S.-Russian relations have significantly deteriorated across the board, including in the realm of space cooperation. Prior to the start of operational Crew Dragon flights in 2020, the United States had been entirely reliant on Russian Soyuz rockets and capsules launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to get astronauts back and forth from the ISS.
Boeing’s development of an alternative crew transport spacecraft called Starliner for NASA has also been beset by repeated technical and other issues, putting additional emphasis on Crew Dragon. In March, a Crew Dragon capsule returned to Earth from the ISS carrying four astronauts, two of whom had been in space months longer than intended. The two individuals in question, Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, had first arrived at the ISS in June 2024 aboard a Starliner on which a number of reaction control system (RCS) thrusters malfunctioned. That spacecraft ultimately left the ISS without anyone on board due to safety concerns.
SpaceX’s work with NASA is also set to expand further through the planned use of Starship to help restart crewed U.S. missions to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. As it stands now, the goal is for Starship to help land American astronauts on the Moon in 2027. The last time U.S. astronauts made that trip was the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
Of Musk’s companies, SpaceX, by far, has the most lucrative deals with the U.S. government, though the exact accounting is unclear. The company has received at least $22 billion in federal contracts, around $15 billion of which are from NASA, Reuters reported in February, citing SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell.
However, Musk’s other firms could stand to lose deals or otherwise be heavily impacted if Trump were to follow through on his implied threat. For instance, electric car company Tesla has its own U.S. government contracts and benefits greatly from federal subsidies. Other companies Musk has founded, including tunnel construction firm The Boring Company, artificial intelligence technology-focused xAI, and brain-human interface developer Neuralink, have or could be in line for contracts with U.S. federal organizations.
Regardless, the very public flap between Trump and Musk has offered an opportunity to highlight just how essential the services that SpaceX provides have become to the U.S. government, and the U.S. military especially. Any disruption on this front could have a particularly outsized effect on Golden Dome, which already has an extremely ambitious schedule for fielding at least an initial capability. This is in addition to the fact that a potential fight with China could be on the horizon. Space-based capabilities and access to orbit would be critical in deterring such an outcome, as well as succeeding if a conflict were to erupt. Russia is also investing in exotic counter-space weapons and is a growing threat to NATO’s eastern flank. So, the timing of potentially having a major disruption with the U.S. government’s primary space access provider is extremely problematic.
Overall, on a purely pragmatic level, axing existing deals with the company and/or blocking future ones could have wide-reaching short and long-term impacts on the ability of America’s armed forces to get payloads into space, as well as use that increasingly critical domain to sense, communicate, and more.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com