This is a two day old article. But with so much else going on I hadn’t seen it. If you haven’t, you really must read it. It’s one of growing number of examples that the U.S. government is at present essentially being held hostage by the clique surrounding Elon Musk.
Donald Trump got really jazzed up about Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Based on that, he decided that the U.S. should build one as well. But the U.S. is quite a bit larger than Israel. And because of that nothing like that is really feasible at all. So the plan quickly evolved into a new version of Reagan’s SDI. All of this was contained in a late January executive order in which Trump committed the country (purportedly) to building it. There are many reasons why this is a bad idea, both destabilizing but also unfeasible. But let’s set that aside for the moment.
It now emerges that Musk’s SpaceX, Thiel’s Palantir and Palmer Luckey’s Anduril have combined forces to build what Trump is calling “Golden Dome.” Needless to say, since Musk basically controls federal contracting, he’s essentially giving the contract to himself. Through the article, there are gently phrased characterizations of the situation like this (emphasis added).
One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.”
As I said, Musk runs things. So, much as it’s necessary to be sensitive to the needs of the guy with the gun during a stick-up, people at the Pentagon are doing just that.
But none of this gets to the most jaw-dropping part of this. Musk and Thiel propose making this network of hundreds of surveillance and attack satellites into a subscription service that the Musk/Thiel/Luckey consortium would own and the Pentagon would subscribe to. Not only is this crazy and absurd but it goes without saying that in no normal time would anyone at the Pentagon be okay with the U.S. not owning the hardware at the center of national defense. We’ve seen how this goes with Starlink, where Musk routinely threatens to turn the system on or off based on his whims and opens up separate lines of communications and perhaps deals with adversary leaders like Vladimir Putin.
Again, more gentle phrasings (emphasis added) …
Some Pentagon officials have expressed concerns internally about relying on the subscription-based model for any part of the Golden Dome, two sources told Reuters. Such an arrangement would be unusual for such a large and critical defense program.
U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein has been in talks on whether SpaceX should be the owner and operator of its part of the system, the two sources said. Other options include having the U.S. own and operate the system, or having the U.S. own it while contractors handle operations. Guetlein did not respond to a request for comment.
I’ll bet they’re “in talks” about that. The whole suggestion is absurd. Of course, Congress hasn’t appropriated money for any of this. It all comes from the fact that Musk is currently running the government.
