SpaceX has embedded itself at the center of U.S. national-security operations, winning multibillion-dollar contracts from the Space Force in May 2026 and deepening its work with intelligence agencies, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The Space Force awarded SpaceX a $2.3 billion contract to build a satellite communications network for warfare systems and a $4.2 billion contract for satellites designed to track the movements of missiles and aircraft from orbit, the Journal reported. Both projects were fast-tracked through the Pentagon’s “other transaction authority,” a process that bypasses many of the standard regulations for acquiring weaponry and other technology.
The government was SpaceX’s largest single client in 2025, the Journal reported, with revenue totaling around $4 billion and expectations of sharp growth. The company identified the government as “Customer A” in securities filings ahead of its planned initial public offering. Analysts cited by the Journal said SpaceX’s fast-growing work with the military and intelligence agencies could eventually rival the space businesses of long-established defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
The company’s role in national security has become so essential that White House officials determined last year the government could not cancel military contracts after Musk feuded with President Trump, the Journal reported.
“They want to be the rails that all of the trains are riding on,” Kimberly Burke, director of government affairs at research firm Quilty Space, told the Journal. “SpaceX very much wants to be the backbone” of the government’s operations in low-Earth-orbit, she said.
SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment from the Journal.
In a recent interview with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Musk said that SpaceX serves as a “vital element” of U.S. national security, noting the company’s work on Starshield — a military satellite communications network — as well as classified programs operated by government intelligence offices.
The Journal reported that SpaceX’s pitch to the defense community has emphasized speedolars. The company has offered to sell the government technology based largely on its existing products and services, even when its offering does not fit within an existing program or contract.
That approach benefited SpaceX on the Airborne Moving Target Indicator program, an effort to track planes and missiles with satellites. Military officials had said it might take until 2030 to field a working system, but after SpaceX proposed launching a radar-based system on a much faster timeline, the government issued a narrowly tailored request in February that closely matched the company’s capabilities, according to people familiar with the matter cited by the Journal. Pentagon officials have said that other companies will eventually win more contracts to assist the effort.
The National Reconnaissance Office, a U.S. spy agency that operates classified satellites, has worked with SpaceX to build a network of imaging satellites and a system to track targets moving on the ground, according to people familiar with the matter cited by the Journal. The agency can strike agreements that skirt some standard government contracting rules menu. The NRO said in a statement to the Journal that all acquisitions are reviewed to ensure legal and regulatory compliance, and described its system of more than 200 low-Earth-orbit satellites as the “most advanced and capable government [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] constellation our nation has ever delivered.”
During a January visit to SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon had suffered from a history of slow committees and “endless projects,” contrasting that with SpaceX’s approach as “the exact opposite.”
SpaceX’s technologies have helped the company build strong connections at the Pentagon and spy agencies. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, a former top NRO leader, said in written responses to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) last year that Musk was among those present during his interview with President Trump for the job he now holds, according to the Journal. Meink also wrote that he had no relationship with Musk and SpaceX outside of his professional duties.
Some lawmakers have raised competition concerns as SpaceX captures a growing share of the military’s space portfolio. Meink told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in May that the government had “a need for speed” in some programs that could not wait for more companies to contribute, according to the Journal. “The critical nature of some of these capabilities drove us to push what we can get into production right now,” Meink testified.
Defense officials have also discussed how they could use Starship, the massive rocket SpaceX is developing. In November, SpaceX gained permission to conduct up to 76 Starship flights a year from a military-owned launchpad near Cape Canaveral, Fla. — nearly three times the maximum number that Space Force officials had envisioned for the site in a 2022 memo, according to the Journal. The higher rate was said to give the Air Force access to Starship’s capabilities and enhance the government’s access to orbit.
United Launch Alliance, a rocket company owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has warned that flying Starship from even one pad in the area would likely disrupt other rocket operations, the Journal reported. SpaceX has said that launch sites should eventually be operated like airports, permitting several launches a day from a range of providers.