Missile shield in orbit: Musk explores subscription model
Donald Trump wants the United States to be protected from missile attacks. The defence is to be ensured by the Golden Dome – a new generation anti-missile system. Among its potential contractors is SpaceX, and Elon Musk reportedly proposed, according to Reuters, an anti-missile defence offered as a service, in a subscription model.
A key to the country's security, this defensive system offered by a private company as a service can be summarized by the operation of the Golden Dome, as reported by Reuters (Musk on platform X denied this information).
The Golden Dome is a new anti-missile system which, by deploying some of its components in orbit, would effectively protect the United States from a missile attack. The threat posed by intercontinental ballistic missiles was highlighted by Donald Trump in January 2025 as "the most catastrophic" for the USA.
To prevent this threat, the United States wants to build a global anti-missile system that—although its name references Israel’s Iron Dome—is closer in principle to the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) from Reagan’s era.
The sensors of the Golden Dome are to form hundreds of satellites deployed in orbit. Their task will be to detect missile launches, track the trajectory of the missiles, and classify the threats they pose.
If it is determined that missiles threaten the United States, the second component of the Golden Dome will be activated: orbited weapons in the form of, among others, combat lasers capable of destroying detected missiles in flight.
Subscription-based missile defence
The scale of the project and its potential cost—in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars—mean that alongside large defence corporations, other companies and startups are also in line to build the Golden Dome. These include SpaceX, as well as Palantir (a company specializing in data gathering) and Anduril—a startup specializing in building innovative military drones.
In this context, Elon Musk reportedly—according to Reuters—proposed a subscription model for the operation of the space missile shield. The state would not have to cover the cost of building space infrastructure, and since it would be a private initiative, procedures would also be simplified, and thus the construction time of the defence system would be reduced. In return, the Pentagon would pay the contractors a subscription fee.
