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Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two of its partners have emerged as frontrunners to build part of President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system, a report said.
SpaceX is teaming up with software maker Palantir and defense technology company Anduril for a joint bid, with all three of the companies meeting with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their proposal, sources told Reuters.
Their plan is to build and launch 400 to up to more than 1,000 satellites to track the movement of missiles around the globe, the sources said. A fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then eliminate enemy projectiles, but the SpaceX group is not anticipated to play a role in the weaponization of those satellites, the sources added.
The White House, the Department of Defense, SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment from FOX Business.
US ‘GOLDEN DOME’ BACK IN PLAY AS ‘INSURANCE POLICY’ DECADES AFTER REAGAN’S COLD WAR-ERA PROPOSAL
White House senior advisor, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, listens during a Cabinet meeting held by President Donald Trump at the White House on March 24. (Win McNamee/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Trump has ordered the construction of an advanced, next-generation missile defense shield to protect the U.S. from an aerial attack.
In January, he signed an executive order that tasks Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with drawing up plans to build an “Iron Dome for America” that will protect Americans from the threat of missiles launched by a foreign enemy.
TRUMP’S ‘GOLDEN DOME’ WILL NEED MANHATTAN PROJECT-SCALE WHOLE-OF-GOVERNMENT EFFORT, SPACE FORCE GENERAL SAYS
Elon Musk, left, speaks with then-President-elect Donald Trump, center, and guests at a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 19, 2024. (Brandon Bell/Pool/Reuters / Reuters)
So far, the Pentagon has received interest from more than 180 companies to help build the project, a U.S. official told Reuters.
An Israeli soldier stands at an Iron Dome anti-missile battery site for air defense in northern Israel on Monday, Jan. 13. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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The news agency also reported that SpaceX proposed having the U.S. government pay for access to its technology rather than having the government own its part of the Golden Dome project outright.
Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
