Elon Musk Just Won Another Massive Military Contract—This Time, for Satellites

Elon Musk makes a lot of money selling goods and services to the U.S. military. Thanks to his satellite endeavors, he’s about to make a little bit more. According to Bloomberg, Musk’s company SpaceX has received its first contract from Space Force. It’s for a network of low-Earth orbit satellites called Starshield, the military and government brand of sat-coms that uses Starlink’s tech.

The contract is part of Space Force’s Proliferated Low-Earth Orbit plan, which has the new branch of the Pentagon seeding the skies with thousands of satellites from 100 to 1,000 miles above the planet. SpaceX will compete with 15 other companies to place some of these satellites. The plan is for the Pentagon to spend $900 million on this through 2028 and SpaceX’s particular contract caps out at $70 million.

The move is another notch in Musk’s belt as a military contractor. Large parts of his business exist because of government subsidies and contracts with the U.S. military. Despite this, Musk’s business with the Pentagon has often clashed with his public persona and politics. Ukraine successfully utilized Musk’s Starlink for battlefield communications in its defense against Russia’s invasion, but the billionaire has imposed limitations on it. He told engineers not to honor a Ukrainian request to turn on the satellites  k near the Crimean coast in 2022 ahead of a Ukrainian sneak attack against a Russian naval fleet.

“Starlink needs to be a civilian network, not a participant to combat,” Musk said on Twitter when news broke of the Starshield contract. “Starshield will be owned by the US government and controlled by DoD Space Force. This is the right order of things.”

It’s a confusing statement. SpaceX, and by extension Musk, owns Starshield. His contract with Space Force represents some work the company is doing for them, and a small amount at that. In June, the DoD announced it had signed a contract with Musk to continue to provide communications to Ukraine through Starlink. It’s also unclear what the difference between Starshield and Starlink is, specifically, other than branding. “Starshield leverages SpaceX's Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts,” the service’s web page says, making the link between the two services explicit.

The combination of Musk’s mercurial attitude and Pentagon contracts hasn’t escaped the notice of U.S. legislators. “SpaceX is a prime contractor and a critical industry partner for the DoD and the recipient of billions of dollars in taxpayer funding. It poses grave national security risks if DoD contractors are able to independently act to abrogate their provision of services,” five U.S. Senators, including Tammy Duckworth and Elizabeth Warren, said in a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “We are deeply concerned with the ability and willingness of SpaceX to interrupt their service at Mr. Musk’s whim and for the purpose of handcuffing a sovereign country’s self-defense, effectively defending Russian interests.”

In Ukraine, Musk’s intervention did not stop the war or prevent Ukraine from attacking the Black Sea Fleet. Earlier this month, a missile strike hit the Crimean headquarters of the fleet and, according to Ukraine, killed 34 Russian naval officers. Russia accused Kyiv's western allies of helping plan the attack.