Elon Musk Wants to Own Trump’s Pet Defense Project

Elon Musk could own yet another stake in the Department of Defense as Donald Trump moves to make his golden shield missile defense a reality.

The billionaire’s company, SpaceX, is a top contender to be awarded part of Trump’s “Golden Dome” defense project, a fantastical air defense system the president claims would protect the U.S. from intercontinental missile strikes. Known officially as the “Iron Dome for America,” the proposed project is modeled after Israel’s Iron Dome defense and would likely cost trillions.

SpaceX has partnered with new-right oligarch Peter Thiel’s defense start-up, Palantir, and Anduril, a drone company that’s raised more than $1.5 billion to build AI-powered weapons. The three companies are front-runners in a bid to build out the project together, Reuters reported Thursday.

Crucially, SpaceX’s role in the Golden Dome would be subscription-based, a way to avoid some Defense Department regulations and implement the system faster, Reuters reported. But it would mean that the government would pay to access SpaceX’s technology instead of owning it in full. That, in turn, could prevent the government from holding any control over the tech’s development or subscription cost.

The president has long warned that nuclear warfare is humanity’s most existential threat. During his first term, Trump called nuclear weapons “the biggest problem in the world,” and his warnings about “World War III” have only escalated since then. As he threatens to withdraw U.S. military defense from a number of allies, prompting dozens of countries to seriously consider embracing nuclear defense, Trump has simultaneously proposed to protect the U.S. with a literal air shield that experts say is “technically impossible.”

“We will replenish our military and build an Iron Dome missile defense system to ensure that no enemy can strike our homeland,” Trump promised at the Republican Party convention in August.

“Israel has an Iron Dome. They have a missile defense system,” he said. “Why should other countries have this, and we don’t?”

The proposal isn’t far off from Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which was designed to defend the U.S. from Soviet missiles but was never implemented. It’s known derisively as “Star Wars.”

In January, Trump issued an executive order requiring the Pentagon to come up with an initial blueprint for the Golden Shield by mid-April. The details of the plan are still murky, but SpaceX’s pitch to Pentagon officials involves building up to 1,000 satellites that would circle the globe to sense ominous missiles, sources told Reuters. If the missiles were determined a threat, they would be shot down by a separate fleet of 200 missiles. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

If Musk’s blueprint is approved, it would add billions more to his amassed $38 billion in government contracts across nine federal agencies, all while he continues to slash federal funding and Social Security through the Department of Government Efficiency.

Donald Trump is threatening to take away Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students after the institution refused to agree to his demands.

The White House is demanding that the university change its hiring, admissions, and education practices, ostensibly to oppose antisemitism, and has already pulled $2.2 billion in federal funding. Now Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has asked for records on the “illegal and violent” activities of its foreign student visa holders, saying that Harvard will lose the “privilege of enrolling foreign students” if it doesn’t comply.

Harvard President Alan Garber said Monday in response to administration demands that the “university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Trump denigrated the university in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, saying that “Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges.”

“Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds,” Trump posted.

The loss of international students would be a big blow to America’s oldest university. This year, 27 percent of its enrollment came from foreign students. Trump has already threatened to pull Harvard’s tax-exempt status, an unprecedented move that could cost the university millions. But Harvard’s decision not to give in to Trump comes after other institutions, such as Columbia University, gave in to administration demands and were still penalized.

The president, backed by much of the conservative movement, is trying to destroy academic freedom and take control of America’s institutions of higher education. If Harvard continues its opposition, this battle could become a war in the courts, with other universities also taking legal action. The question is who will stand up to Trump, and who will capitulate.

Donald Trump isn’t too happy after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the president’s tariff policy would cause more inflation and slow growth.

In a post on Truth Social Thursday morning, Trump furiously blamed Powell for not lowering interest rates. The European Central Bank had announced just a few hours earlier that it would make yet another round of cuts to offset Trump’s tariffs, which have roiled the markets and deteriorated the outlook for growth.

“The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, ‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete ‘mess!’” Trump wrote.  

“Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS. Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now,” Trump added. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

In fact, egg prices have once again risen, ahead of Easter weekend, after falling in mid-March. Trump’s claim that the U.S. is getting “rich on tariffs” also deserves some scrutiny. While the president has claimed that the U.S. is raking in up to $2 billion a day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed this week that the number was more like $250 million.

At an event hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago Wednesday, Powell had warned that “the level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”

Trump had already been pushing for the Fed to cut interest rates ahead of announcing his sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy earlier this month. 

Despite Trump’s latest call for his “termination,” Powell has already been clear that the president does not have the power to remove him. His term as Federal Reserve chair ends in May 2026. 

Donald Trump’s nominee to run the IRS, Representative Billy Long, just had a six-figure debt paid off by campaign donors, all of whom happen to have tax issues with the IRS.

Long reported in campaign finance disclosures that he loaned $130,000 to his unsuccessful 2022 campaign for the U.S. Senate, with the dormant campaign committee raising $36,000 in the past two years. This meant that Long would have been personally on the hook for more than $100,000.

Shortly after Trump announced Long as his pick to head the IRS, the committee was suddenly flush, taking in $137,000 in under three weeks in January, and Long used that to reimburse himself. Two-thirds of those donations were for $2,900, the maximum amount allowed by law, and one-third of them came from donors in the tax consultant industry or people with tax-related legal issues.

“Making political contributions to aid Billy Long seems like a surefire way to ingratiate yourself with the man poised to lead the IRS, especially when we’re talking about contributions to help repay campaign debt that is just loans to the candidate himself and contributions to his leadership PAC,” Michael Beckel, senior research director of the campaign finance reform organization Issue One, told Lever News.

“People often criticize campaign contributions for being legalized bribery, but in this case, we’re truly talking about money being given to Long to repay himself,” Beckel added.

Some of the contributors to Long’s campaign worked at firms accused of a fraudulent tax scheme in which they hawked fake tax credits, according to Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee. After leaving Congress in 2023, Long worked at one of the companies, Lifetime Advisors, and had dealings with some of the others, such as White River Energy.

“Given IRS Commissioner nominee Billy Long’s direct financial ties to White River and other entities implicated in this scheme, we are concerned that if confirmed, Long could undermine enforcement actions related to this fraudulent scheme,” Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Catherine Cortez Masto wrote in an April 14 letter to acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause.

Long’s confirmation is still awaiting a Senate vote, but unless Republicans in the chamber grow spines, he’ll probably sail through. Trump choosing him in the first place shows how corruption is now openly tolerated in the Republican Party, inspired by the activities of the top man himself.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is involved in Trump’s plan to have people buy their way to American citizenship.

As the Trump administration continues to blatantly ignore court orders and deport thousands of immigrants without justification, Musk’s crew of twentysomething goons is building out a special type of $5 million visa designed to give “high-level people” a “route to citizenship.”

Dubbed “gold cards” by Trump, the visas were first announced in February. Each card sells for $5 million and would replace the E.B.-5 visa program. DOGE is now working with the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to build out the project’s website and application process, The New York Times reported Wednesday. His team consists of Marko Elez (the 25-year-old with a history of racist X posts), 19-year-old Edward Coristine, who publicly goes by “Big Balls,” and the billionaire co-founder of Airbnb.

Elez and Coristine have been meeting with staff at different agencies in charge of the immigration vetting process to determine how to build out their system.

While much of MAGA has pushed to eradicate immigration of any kind, Musk has at times defended immigration—if those coming to the U.S. are college-educated, wealthy, and will comply with his mission to run the country like a private start-up.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has touted the “gold card” program and claimed the government has already made $5 billion off the scheme, even though it doesn’t exist yet.

“Yesterday I sold a thousand,” Lutnick said in a podcast interview last month.

“The idea is, if I was not American, and I lived in any other country, I would buy six—one for me, one for my wife, one for my four kids—because God forbid something happens, I want to be able to go to America, and I want to have the right to go to the airport to go to America,” Lutnick added, foreshadowing a not-so-distant reality where only the ultrawealthy can relocate to Trump’s America.