Trump’s Golden Dome Missile Defense: Costly, Wasteful, With Contracts for Palantir, of Billionaire Peter Thiel

Largely freed of competition, Golden Dome task orders can go to favored Trump contractors, including high-tech billionaires who are his close allies.

The evidence accumulates that Golden Dome is going to be an enormously costly and extremely wasteful system. And, the contracting for high-tech work seems sure to go to Palantir. Palantir’s board chairman, the extremely well connected billionaire Peter Thiel, longtime Trump-backer and mentor of Vice President J.D. Vance.

In July, a letter by Senator Edward J. Markey and nine other Senators said:

“President Trump has said that Golden Dome would cost $175 billion and be ‘fully operational’ by 2029. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that it could cost as much as $542 billion to deploy a constellation of space-based interceptors (SBIs) designed to defeat one or two intercontinental ballistic missiles launched in a limited attack, such as by North Korea. Countering a possible Russian or Chinese attack involving hundreds of warheads would require a much larger, more technologically advanced, and more costly system. . . . Despite what could amount to a trillion dollar investment, Golden Dome would be all-too-easy to defeat.”

Earlier in September, the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), more cheerleader than critic of Trump’s, issued a report that the cost of Golden Dome could range as high as $3.6 trillion. AEI gave a range of possibilities, from that high figure for a system doing what President Trump asserts he wants Golden Dome to do, down to lower figures that while still far above Trump’s $175 billion, would have much more limited capabilities what he claims.

So now that the Administration is launched on procuring Golden Dome, the natural question is, who benefits? Some of the contracting may go to traditional defense contractors like Lockheed Martin. But, the new hallmark of the Trump administration has been the mutually beneficial cultivating of Silicon Valley billionaires. The beauty of Golden Dome is that it involves not just hardware from traditional contractors, but tech products from the Trump Administration’s closest new friends.

  • AmericanEconomicThinkTank@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    5 hours ago

    What’s the old metrics?

    Private industry costs three bucks to do what public does for one.

    The Department of Defense War hasn’t passed an audit for 8 years straight, high percentage of contract deliverables being immediately retired, resold domestically, or outright never delivered.

    Of course they’re going to stuff their pockets as much as possible. It’s the only thing they’re actually able to do, and barely competently at that.

  • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    8·
    11 hours ago

    Largely freed of competition, Golden Dome task orders can go to favored Trump contractors, including high-tech billionaires who are his close allies.

    Right there is the purpose of the Golden Dome.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    11 hours ago

    Whew! I thought he was going to stiff his buddies and help the citizens there for a while. /s

  • Cosmoooooooo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    23 hours ago

    Peter Thiel rapes children. Peter Thiel is a child rapist. He’s in the Epstein files. Release the rest, and Peter Thiel rapes children for fun.

  • xenomor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    54·
    1 day ago

    As with everything this president does, this is a grift. It’s a way to siphon meaningfully more wealth from the American public, send it to billionaires, all while feeding the fear machine that fascists need to maintain power.

    Given how obvious, predictable, and preventable all of this is, if the American public falls for it again, we probably deserve it. We deserve to suffer the consequences of our collective stupidity.

    Wake the fuck up people.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zipEnglish
      8·
      3 hours ago

      if the American public falls for it again, we probably deserve it.

      Well, i’m not american and will still be affected. Get your shit together over there.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    18·
    1 day ago

    Thiel is currently in the limelight for having mentored, financed, and boosted Vice President Vance. In sum, Thiel employed Vance in his Silicon Valley venture capital firm right after law school, helped Vance start his own venture capital firm, introduced Vance to Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2021 and got Trump’s endorsement for Vance’s Senate race, and contributed a crucial $15 million to Vance’s Senate campaign.

    Does anyone know how Vance ended up in silicon valley after law school? Was he recruited at Yale?

    I have wondered for a while if Peter Thiel saw him as a chance for a rube/dark Jimmy Carter.