By Drew FitzGerald and Micah Maidenberg
SpaceX's years of courting the national-security establishment are paying off.
The U.S. government is SpaceX's largest single client, which the 24-year-old company identified as "Customer A" in securities filings ahead of its planned initial public offering. Revenue from the government, which totaled around $4 billion in 2025, is set to sharply climb over the next few years.
The Elon Musk-led company has combined its ability to pump out satellites and quickly launch rockets with savvy maneuvering of the Pentagon to secure high-value deals. Those agreements are putting SpaceX at the center of military and intelligence agencies' plans for space.
The Space Force last month awarded SpaceX a $2.3 billion contract to build a satellite communications network for warfare systems and a $4.2 billion contract for satellites to track the movements of missiles and aircraft from orbit. Both projects were fast-tracked through the Pentagon's "other transaction authority," bypassing many of the regulations that typically slow the process for acquiring weaponry and other technology.
SpaceX is a much smaller government contractor than big defense companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. But analysts say SpaceX's fast-growing work with the military and intelligence agencies could eventually rival the weapon makers' space businesses.
SpaceX's role in national security is now so essential that White House officials last year determined the government couldn't cancel military contracts after Musk feuded with President Trump, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
"They want to be the rails that all of the trains are riding on," said Kimberly Burke, director of government affairs at research firm Quilty Space. "SpaceX very much wants to be the backbone" of the government's operations in low-Earth-orbit, she added.
SpaceX didn't respond to requests for comment.
In an interview with JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon on Thursday, Musk said that SpaceX serves as a "vital element" of U.S. national security. He noted the company's work on Starshield -- a military satellite communications network -- as well as work on classified programs operated by government intelligence offices.
Military-minded
SpaceX's pitch to the defense community has been clear: We'll move quickly. The company has offered to sell the government technology based largely on its existing products and services, even when its offering doesn't fit within an existing program or contract.
That playbook worked to SpaceX's advantage on the effort to track planes and missiles with satellites, known as the Airborne Moving Target Indicator program. The Pentagon is testing a variety of technologies for spotting airborne objects from space, but military officials last year said that it might take until 2030 to field a working system.
After SpaceX proposed launching a radar-based system on a much faster timeline, the government in February issued a narrowly tailored request that closely matched SpaceX's capabilities, according to people familiar with the matter. Pentagon officials have said that other companies will eventually win more contracts to assist the missile-tracking mission.
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. The agency can strike agreements that skirt some standard government contracting rules.
The NRO said in a statement that all acquisitions are reviewed to ensure legal and regulatory compliance. The agency said its system of more than 200 low-Earth-orbit satellites is the "most advanced and capable government [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] constellation our nation has ever delivered."
The Pentagon has held up SpaceX as an example of companies that can help the military cut through red tape and more quickly field weapons and other capabilities.
During a January visit to the company's Starbase facility in Texas, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon had suffered from a history of slow committees and "endless projects."
"That sounds about like the exact opposite of SpaceX," Hegseth said.
Forging ties
SpaceX's technologies have helped the company build strong connections at the Pentagon and spy agencies.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said last year in written responses to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) that Musk was among those present during his interview with Trump for the job he now holds. Meink, a former top NRO leader, also wrote that he had no relationship with Musk and SpaceX outside of his professional duties.
Some lawmakers have raised competition concerns as SpaceX grabs a growing share of the military's fast-growing space portfolio. Meink said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in May that the government had "a need for speed" in some programs that couldn't wait for more companies to contribute.
"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 discussed how they could use Starship, the massive rocket SpaceX is developing to deploy bigger payloads to orbit and conduct deeper space missions.
Last November, SpaceX gained permission to conduct up to 76 Starship flights a year from a military-owned launchpad near Cape Canaveral, Fla. That was almost three times the maximum number of launches Space Force officials envisioned for the site in a 2022 memo viewed by the Journal.
Military documents said that the higher rate would give the Air Force, the parent organization of the Space Force, access to Starship's capabilities and enhance the government's access to orbit.
SpaceX's plans for the pad, along with its efforts to conduct Starship launches from a separate NASA site, have raised concerns among competing rocket companies. 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.
SpaceX has said that launch sites need to eventually be operated like airports, permitting several launches a day from a range of providers.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 07, 2026 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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