The Trump administration is searching for additional partners to help build the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system beyond Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to a report.
The Pentagon and White House were already considering alternative contractors before Musk and President Donald Trump’s public spat in June, wary of relying too heavily on a single company to build the wildly ambitious project, unnamed officials told Reuters.
The Golden Dome aims to shoot missiles out of the sky before they reach U.S. soil, similar to Israel’s Iron Dome. The push to diversify the project comes as Trump repeatedly threatened to sever all federal ties with SpaceX following his and Musk’s spectacular falling-out.
However, administration aides realized many of Musk’s contracts with the Defense Department and NASA are simply too critical to cancel, The Wall Street Journal reported. Trump had also threatened to deport the South African-born tech billionaire and strip all government subsidies for his companies.
Trump’s ire partially stems from Musk suggesting the president’s name appears in the Epstein files, and that’s why they haven’t been released. Musk also floated launching a third party to target those who backed Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” spending bill.
Other defense contractors are lining up to join the Golden Dome program include Amazon’s orbit satellite broadband network, Project Kuiper, Reuters reported.
SpaceX is still going to be involved in the Golden Dome on areas such as launch contracts, sources told the news outlet. But other major defense companies such as Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, and Lockheed Martin are also the running to be part of the $175 billion initiative, which Trump hopes to roll out in the next three years.
“Lockheed Martin is ready to support Golden Dome for America as a proven mission partner,” Robert Lightfoot, president of Lockheed Martin Space, told Reuters.
Musk’s SpaceX remains the dominant force in low-Earth orbit satellite internet, with thousands of Starlink satellites already launched. In comparison, Project Kuiper has managed just 78 so far but is working to have a constellation of more than 3,000 satellites in orbit.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder, told Reuters in January that Project Kuiper was intended for commercial purposes but acknowledged there’s “no doubt” it has potential defense uses.
Trump’s Golden Dome concept is inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome system, which the Israeli military says has intercepted thousands of incoming rockets since its deployment.
SpaceX, the Pentagon, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
