‘Netflix for defense’: Elon Musk trying to sell America a ‘subscription model’ missile system

If I were searching for someone to keep Americans safe at all costs, my first choice wouldn’t be the ketamine-addled blathering mess that is Elon Musk. And yet, here we are, with Musk currently doing his best used car salesman routine as he attempts to convince the U.S. government to pay him billions of dollars for a defense system they won’t own.

“The Golden Dome” is Trump’s baby. Modeled after Israel’s “Iron Dome”, it was initially dubbed “Iron Dome for America” before furious lawyers pointed out that they’d be infringing on a trademark owned by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

Anyhow, it’s now officially “The Golden Dome” and consists of fancy titles that appear custom-designed to make Donald Trump coo like a baby with a new rattle. There’s the “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture”, “space-based interceptors”, “high-powered laser non-kinetic weapons”, and “Patriot Advanced Capability missiles”. You know, fancy toys with Tom Clancy names for spoiled little boys.

Golden Dome as a "subscription service"

Does this mean us "European freeloaders" could get the username and password and get space-based missile defence for free. https://t.co/9AHCEfJVx4

— Tony Osborne (@Rotorfocus) April 17, 2025

Musk now has dollar signs in his eyes, hoping that SpaceX will be able to hook itself up to the Pentagon money tap, turn that baby all the way on, and gorge itself on taxpayer dollars. But, in an extraordinarily Elon twist, they’re pitching the government on a defense system that basically works on the Netflix principle.

An ordinary defense arrangement would see a company be contracted to build and support weapons systems while the military buys and operates them. Musk’s bright idea is that SpaceX would maintain ownership of the weapons, then charge the Pentagon a subscription. Thing is, the benefit of a subscription is that you can cancel it if you like, but it’s vanishingly unlikely that the Pentagon will be able to decide, “thanks Elon, but we’re putting our missile defense sub on hold for a few months”.

"SpaceX is leading a bid to build Golden Dome with startups Anduril and Palantir, six people said The SpaceX-led group is pitching the Pentagon on a 'subscription model' for missile defense, sources said"

A subscription model… WTF is this? Netflix???https://t.co/U03v32900g

— Arturo Portnoy (@portna) April 17, 2025

What this is actually going to do is create a never-ending river of money flowing from American taxpayers straight into Musk’s bank account. As per Reuters, Pentagon officials “have expressed concerns internally” about paying for a Golden Dome subscription to powerful weapons ultimately controlled by a powerful billionaire. Yeah, no kidding.

Perhaps Musk will go even further and add some subscription tiers. “Oh uh, sure Secretary of Defense, you uh could stick with the uh basic plan, but for a mere uh $50 billion extra per year you can get upgraded to the Titanium Tier and uh get access to the uh rocket-powered autonomous Tesla space robots that are definitely coming soon”.

You might also point out that a “Dome” style defense system makes sense for the 8,522 square miles-sized country of Israel, but might not work as well for the 3.8 million square miles of the United States. But that, as always, is a problem for another day.