By Sana Pashankar Satellite company York Space Systems Inc. told investors in its initial public offering this year that getting a piece of the $185 billionGolden Dome missile defense project would fuel growth. Then it ran headlong into SpaceX.

In May, Elon Musk’s company won a $2 billion contract for a network of military satellites to communicate and transport data as part of Golden Dome. Months later, York and a few other companies were left with deals worth just a few million dollars.

According to people familiar with the matter, many requirements — such as speed and production capacity — were tailored so specifically to SpaceX’s Starshield, the militarized version of its Starlink network, that some companies didn’t bother to bid on it.

For York, which had staked its business on contracts like these — part of a project whose full scope would most likely cost more than $1 trillion — the blow sent shares tumbling. Across the broader industry, the decision stoked fear that the Pentagon’s focus on SpaceX could stifle the growth of potential competitors and deepen reliance on a single provider.

“It shouldn’t be the case that you decide ahead of time that you’d like to award a contract to an individual company and then write all the criteria to make that happen,” said Dave Vorland, who served as the acting deputy assistant secretary of space and missile defense policy in the Biden administration. “We’d like to see an industrial base that includes more than one viable company.” As the Pentagon races to make Golden Dome operational by the end of Trump’s term in 2028, the emphasis on speed has contributed to an increased and amplified reliance on SpaceX, according to people familiar with the matter.

Musk’s company has slashed the cost to orbit with its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, and commands the largest satellite network in the world in Starlink. It also makes most components of its hardware in-house and can mass produce satellites at a rate that few, if any, other companies can match.

That has led the Space Force to tailor multibillion-dollar contracts specifically to the company, the people say, even as it meets resistance from Congress and the Office of Management and Budget.

For the communications network contract in May,the Pentagon chose Starshield satellites even though they carry a next-generation radio system not widely used by US and allied forces today, a decision that generated controversy inside the Pentagon, according to people familiar with the matter.

Satellites from other providers, including York and Northrop Grumman Corp., are compatible with current systems.

A spokesperson for the Space Force said the service is committed to competition and building a viable industrial base, and that the requirement for speed is being driven by a rapidly growing threat. SpaceX didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Defense Department’s decision in May was partly an attempt to unify another Starshield-based government communications network originally called MILNET, which also faced allegations of being tailored to SpaceX.

In a congressional hearing in June 2025, Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said MILNET was “being sole sourced to SpaceX, no competition, no open architecture, no leveraging a dynamic space ecosystem” and could make the Pentagon “dependent on their proprietary technology.” York and four other companies were later awarded contracts to support the space-based communications network but for far smaller amounts: $12 million each, although there are opportunities for follow-on awards.

In York’s second quarter-earnings report in August, it cut its full-year revenue outlook by 32%, citing a slower pace in government contracts. Shares are down more than 70% from their January offering, and at least nine analysts slashed price targets by an average of 54% since Aug. 14, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the company, alleging that York misled investors about its business operations, contract prospects, and satellite readiness.

Meanwhile, SpaceX has become one of the companies most publicly and heavily involved with Golden Dome. In addition to the communications network, the company has been awarded a contract for a missile tracking network, the space-based interceptor program, and is a part of an industry consortium building Golden Dome’s software.

“The problem you run into is right now there’s only one company that can build satellites like this at the scale and speed required,” said Todd Harrison, a senior defense fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “It is going to extend the reliance, at least for the foreseeable future.” SpaceX also has a close ally in Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, who oversees the Space Force, according to people familiar with the matter. Meink had served as the head of the National Reconnaissance Office, which built an intelligence network using SpaceX’s satellites under his leadership.

In February 2025, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth sent a letter to Meink as he was being considered for his current role raising concerns of potentially favorable treatment towards SpaceX. The letter came after a report that the Pentagon’s internal watchdog was investigating whether Meink improperly steered a contract toward SpaceX.

Musksat in on Meink’s interview with Trump for the role of Air Force secretary, according to written responses Meink provided to lawmakers.

In May, the Space Force awarded SpaceX another $4 billion Golden Dome contract to build satellites to track foreign aircraft and missiles.

According to people familiar with the matter, the Space Force had wanted to sole source the contract to SpaceX, which the government can do if there is an urgent operational need or if there is only one provider.

SpaceX would need to develop advanced radar panels, something it didn’t already produce but other providers did, according to people familiar with the matter.

But even after Congress pushed the Space Force to open the competition to other companies, the requirements around launch and production capacity were still so aggressive that only SpaceX could meet them.

SpaceX’s arrival as a darling of the Pentagon is an ironic twist from its early years, when it had to fight through the dominance of the Boeing Co.-Lockheed Martin Corp. joint venture United Launch Alliance to bid for defense-related launches.

Today, SpaceX commands the majority of national security launches for the US and holds the largest contract — up to $5.9 billion to launch national security payloads for the next five years. This year, the Space Force awarded SpaceX five national security launches and United Launch Alliance just two.

The Space Force has tried to incorporate other competitors. After urging from Congress and the Office of Management and Budget, it established a vendor pool for the air missile tracking network with other companies, including Blue Origin LLC and Rocket Lab Corp., and later awarded three contracts totaling $615 million.

That still leaves SpaceX with an outsized role in putting US national security payloads in orbit. Such dominance exposes defense programs to the whims of Musk, who has had a tumultuous relationship with Trump.

In June 2025, for instance, after the two had a falling out over Trump’s signature tax package, Musk threatened to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which ferries astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

York, meanwhile, is holding out hope that lawmakers can pressure the Space Force into allowing more competition.

“We need to win contracts,” York Chief Executive Officer Dirk Wallinger said at a conference in September. “There’s a recognition by the government, quite frankly, they’re getting a little beat up by Congress, that there needs to be more competition.”