Trump: Golden Dome to cost $175 billion, will be led by Space Force’s Guetlein

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump today announced that his signature Golden Dome effort will cost $175 billion, and that he has tapped the Space Force’s Vice Chief of Space Operations, Gen. Michael Guetlein, to lead the project. 

“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they are launched from space, and we will have the best system ever built,” Trump said in an Oval Office briefing, flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, US senators and Guetlein.

The Golden Dome project will be “fully operational” by the end of his term, Trump asserted, laying out a challenging timeline for the sprawling, highly complex initiative. Canada has also asked to join the effort, according to Trump.

“They want to hook in, and they want to see if they can be a part of it,” Trump said of America’s northern neighbor, with whom the Trump administration has had a contentious relationship. “It won’t be very difficult to do. They’ll pay their fair share,” he added.

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The Golden Dome program will first be funded by a $25 billion cash infusion Republican lawmakers laid out in a reconciliation bill, Trump said, though the legislation is now in limbo amid internal opposition among House GOP members.

Trump and other Oval Office attendees today were thin on what architecture, exactly, the president has set to be operational before the end of his term. Asked about the three-year timeline, missile defense expert Tom Karako told Breaking Defense today, “It depends on how one describes the ‘it,’” and said that the initiative will require a “phased process” adding capabilities over time. 

“It’s not unreasonable to have an initial capability that better stitches together both military and non-military capabilities, and improves our domain awareness,” said Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project and a senior fellow with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Considering the “diffusion” of new strike capabilities, an effort like Golden Dome is “long overdue,” he said.  

Guetlein, seen before today by many as a top contender to lead the Golden Dome effort due to the centrality of space in the future project, brings years of space experience to the role. He was previously the head of Space Systems Command and has worked directly with space systems like the Pentagon’s SBIRS missile warning and tracking constellation among other space-focused jobs.

Referencing new threats like “cruise missiles that can navigate around our radar and our defenses,” Guetlein today said it was critical to “start doubling down on the protection of the homeland,” calling the missile defense project a “bold and aggressive approach.” 

A System Of Systems

The Golden Dome effort, which takes its name from Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, was created by an executive order days after Trump took office in January. Like the dome in the name suggests, the initiative aims to create a veritable air defense shield around the American homeland to defend against a variety of threats, such as cruise and ballistic missiles and next-generation weapons like hypersonics.

The defensive plan wouldn’t exactly field a single system, officials have explained. Instead, Golden Dome will be a “system of systems” with several “layers,” first consisting of sensors ranging from the ground and up to satellites. Data from those sensors would then feed an arsenal of interceptors to knock down an inbound threat. Under the plan, that would involve terrestrial interceptors but also at least a number of space-based platforms meant to destroy missiles shortly after they get off the ground, while they’re still in a stage of flight known as the boost phase. 

But Golden Dome has numerous obstacles, among them funding and the feasibility of a space-based interceptor architecture in particular. Despite Trump’s $175 billion estimate today, others have said the price tag could be in the multiple hundreds of billions of dollars, and some officials like Montana Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy have even predicted that it could cost in the “trillions.”

Golden Dome could also run into some technical roadblocks. The air shield scheme would rely on radars that operate in the 3.1-3.45 GHz band of the electromagnetic spectrum, and DoD officials have cautioned that auctioning off portions of the spectrum for commercial use could jeopardize sensors critical to the Golden Dome effort. And officials have also described a chief challenge being not just successfully fielding individual systems, but stitching them together in a usable and effective way.

Beyond technical limitations, the plan also has its critics. Arms control experts, for example, have warned the initiative could destabilize decades-old nuclear doctrine by undermining other nations’ second strike capability. Senate Democrats have also raised ethics concerns due to the influence of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which Reuters reported is a frontrunner to win some space-based Golden Dome work.

‘Everybody’ To Compete

During the Oval Office announcement today, Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said the missile defense effort will consist of interceptors from large defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, and that “new defense tech companies” who can bring missile defense capabilities at a “lower” cost are interested in bidding. Trump, for his part, seemed to say tech companies would play a role, pointing to the “most brilliant minds in the world” from Silicon Valley. 

“What’s exciting about this is it makes it available to everybody to participate, to compete. Big companies, mid-sized companies, small companies,” North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer said during the Oval Office briefing. 

Following the announcement, TD Cowen analysts Roman Schweizer and Liz Huseynov said in a note to investors that while they were “skeptical that an impervious continental missile defense shield is feasible,” they nevertheless viewed Golden Dome as an “important catalyst to develop and field critical space-based capabilities.”

In remarks today, Trump boasted the US has an advantage as it pursues the Golden Dome program: “super technology” that “nobody” else does. He did not elaborate.

UPDATED 5/20/25 at 6:21 PM ET with additional information from the White House briefing.