USA

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, a close associate of US President Donald Trump, has shared his plans for visiting India. While talking about his phone call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday, he has said that he is looking forward to visiting India later this year.

“It was an honour to speak with PM Modi. I am looking forward to visiting India later this year,” said Musk on X, a day after holding talks about India-US collaborations with the Prime Minister.

PM Modi said yesterday the two covered various issues during their phone call. These included topics that featured in their discussions when PM Modi visited Washington earlier this year.

” We discussed the immense potential for collaboration in the areas of technology and innovation. India remains committed to advancing our partnerships with the US in these domains,” PM Modi had said.

The United States has issued a stricter travel advisory for Bangladesh, flagging concerns of terrorism and civil unrest in the Asian country that saw a deadly coup and a change in regime less than a year ago. US citizens must reconsider travelling to Bangladesh due to civil unrest, crime, and terrorism, said the State Department advisory issued on Friday.

Bangladesh currently has a ‘level 3’ tag urging US citizens to reconsider their travel, while some pockets – Khagrachari, Rangamati, and Bandarban Hill Tracts districts – come with a level 4 “Do Not Travel” warning.

The above districts are collectively known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Travellers should not visit this area “due to communal violence, crime, terrorism, kidnapping, and other security risks,” said the US advisory.

Read: Hindu Community Leader Kidnapped, Beaten To Death In Bangladesh

“Kidnappings have occurred in the region, including those motivated by domestic or familial disputes, and those targeting members of religious minorities. Separatist organisations and political violence also pose additional threats to visitors to the region, and there have been instances of IED explosions and active shooting,” it added.

Bangladesh saw a massive student protest last year that ended with the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August. Over a thousand protesters died in clashes, followed by attacks on the Hindu religious minorities and Hindu monks.

A new interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is now in place as Bangladesh waits to elect its next leader. However, the US fears the situation is still not peaceful yet for its citizens to travel.

Read: In New Bonhomie With Pak, Bangladesh Calls For A Reset, With An Apology

“Occasional protests continue with potential for violent clashes…US citizens are reminded to avoid all gatherings, even peaceful ones, since they could turn violent with little or no warning…There is risk of terrorist violence, including terrorist attacks and other activity in Bangladesh,” the advisory added.

The US government has also restricted non-essential travel of federal employees outside the diplomatic enclave in Dhaka and must get special authorisation to travel outside of the Bangladesh capital.

Others travelling to Bangladesh must avoid political gatherings and demonstrations and monitor the local media for breaking events, the US government has advised.

US President Donald Trump on Friday evening shared a photograph that he claimed showed the tattooed knuckles of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was deported to El Salvador last month amid controversy. 

The image, posted to Trump’s social media accounts, purported to be “proof” that Abrego Garcia is a member of the violent MS-13 gang. But the photo is now under scrutiny, with critics – including tech experts and political opponents – suggesting it was digitally manipulated.

Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported, but his legal team argues that it was against US law. 

Trump’s post, featuring a black-and-white photo of a man’s knuckles with the letters “MS-13” above four small symbols, was accompanied by a caption attacking Democrats for allegedly defending “a fine and innocent person” who Trump insists is a violent gang member. 

“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such “a fine and innocent person.” They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc. I was elected to take bad people out of the United States, among other things. I must be allowed to do my job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump’s post read. 

This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such “a fine and innocent person.” They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found… pic.twitter.com/31sNr2k1SK

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2025

Almost immediately, the image began drawing accusations of digital doctoring. Several users on social media platforms noted discrepancies in lighting and typography on the tattoo. “‘MS-13’ looks like it was typed on the photo,” one user wrote, while others pointed to the pixelated appearance and alignment of the letters as evidence of tampering.

Linda Higgins, a former Minnesota state senator, responded on X (formerly Twitter): “Hey Old Man, @realDonaldTrump, have someone teach you about Photoshop. This is an excellent example of altering a photo, in this case to make your illegal actions look good.”

Though Trump has insisted the image confirms Abrego Garcia’s gang membership, court documents filed by US government attorneys have never mentioned tattoos as part of their case. 

US Attorney General Pam Bondi this week released documents claiming that Abrego Garcia was known by the gang rank “Chequeo” and street name “Chele,” but the filings did not include any photographic or physical evidence to establish gang membership.

Several social media sleuths pointed to older images of Abrego Garcia, including videos posted by his wife on TikTok, that show tattoos on his knuckles but not the text “MS-13.” 

Abrego Garcia arrived in the US as a 16-year-old in 2011, fleeing threats from Barrio 18 gang members who extorted his family’s small food shop in El Salvador. His family had feared he would be recruited by criminal groups. He began working in construction in Maryland and later became the main provider for his family of five, including two children with autism.

In 2019, he was detained outside a Home Depot by an anti-gang unit. A confidential informant claimed he was affiliated with MS-13. Yet, an immigration judge later ruled that deporting him would put him at risk, allowing him to remain in the US with a work permit.

That protection was upended this March, when he was detained while shopping with his son and swiftly deported to El Salvador within three days, despite the standing court order.

About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Sen Robert F Kennedy were released Friday, including handwritten notes by the gunman, who said the Democratic presidential candidate “must be disposed of” and acknowledged an obsession with killing him.

Many of the files had been made public previously, while others had not been digitized and sat for decades in federal government storage facilities. Their release continued the disclosure of historical investigation documents ordered by President Donald Trump.

Kennedy was fatally shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after giving a speech celebrating his victory in California’s presidential primary. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison.

The files included pictures of handwritten notes by Sirhan.

“RFK must be disposed of like his brother was,” read the writing on the outside of an empty envelope, referring to Kennedy’s older brother, President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. The return address was from the district director of the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles.

The National Archives and Records Administration posted 229 files containing the pages to its public website.

The release comes a month after unredacted files related to the assassination of President Kennedy were disclosed. Those documents gave curious readers more details about Cold War-era covert US operations in other nations but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, the son of Robert Kennedy, commended the release.

“Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government,” the health secretary said in a statement.

Documents include interviews with assassin’s acquaintances

The files surrounding Robert Kennedy’s assassination also included notes from interviews with people who knew Sirhan from a wide variety of contexts, such as classmates, neighbors and coworkers. While some described him as “a friendly, kind and generous person” others depicted a brooding and “impressionable” young man who felt strongly about his political convictions and briefly believed in mysticism.

According to the files, Sirhan told his garbage collector that he planned to kill Kennedy shortly after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The sanitation worker, a Black man, said he planned to vote for Kennedy because he would help Black people.

“Well, I don’t agree. I am planning on shooting the son of a bitch,” Sirhan replied, the man told investigators.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century,” said there have always been conspiracies surrounding Robert Kennedy’s assassination. He believes the rollout of documents Friday would be similar to the JFK documents released earlier this year.

He cautioned that a review needs to be done carefully and slowly, “just in case there is a hint in there or there is an anecdote” that could shed more light on the assassination.

“I hope there’s more information,” Sabato said. “I’m doubtful that there is, just as I said when the JFK documents were released.”

Some redactions remained in the documents posted online Friday, including names and dates of birth. Last month, the Trump administration came under criticism over unredacted personal information, including Social Security numbers, during the release of records surrounding President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Trump, a Republican, has championed in the name of transparency the release of documents related to high-profile assassinations and investigations. But he has also been deeply suspicious for years of the government’s intelligence agencies. His administration’s release of once-hidden files opens the door for more public scrutiny of the operations and conclusions of institutions such as the CIA and the FBI.

Trump signed an executive order in January calling for the release of government documents related to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and King, who were killed within two months of each other.

Lawyers for Kennedy’s killer have said for decades that he is unlikely to reoffend or pose a danger to society, and in 2021, a parole board deemed Sirhan suitable for release. But Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the decision in 2022, keeping him in state prison. In 2023, a different panel denied him release, saying he still lacks insight into what caused him to shoot Kennedy.

RFK still stands as a hero to American liberals

Kennedy remains an icon for liberals, who see him as a champion for human rights who also was committed to fighting poverty and racial and economic injustice. They often regard his assassination as the last in a series of major tragedies that put the US and its politics on a darker, more conservative path.

He was a sometimes divisive figure during his lifetime. Some critics thought he came late to opposing the Vietnam War, and he launched his campaign for president in 1968 only after the Democratic primary in New Hampshire exposed President Johnson’s political weakness.

Kennedy’s older brother appointed him US attorney general, and he remained a close aide to him until JFK’s assassination in Dallas. In 1964, he won a US Senate seat from New York and was seen as the heir to the family’s political legacy.

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US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Washington could quit talks to end the Ukraine war within days unless there is rapid progress from Moscow and Kyiv.

The warning confirmed a sudden change of US messaging, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier saying in Paris that the United States would “move on” if peace was not “doable.”

Trump has been pressing both sides for a truce, but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin despite an ice-breaking call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and repeated negotiations with Moscow.

“Yeah very shortly,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked to confirm what Rubio had said about abandoning talks. “No specific number of days, but quickly. We want to get it done.”

Trump refused to cast blame on either Putin, who ordered the February 2022 full-scale invasion of pro-Western Ukraine, or Kyiv’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. But he insisted both sides had to make progress.

“Now if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘You’re foolish. You’re fools. You’re horrible people’ — and we’re going to just take a pass,” Trump said.

“But hopefully we won’t have to do that.”

– ‘Move on’ –

Moscow has kept up strikes on Ukraine, killing at least two people and wounding dozens more in attacks on the northeastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy, Ukrainian officials said.

One of the few commitments Trump had wrangled from Russia — a temporary moratorium on striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure — “expired” on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to an AFP question.

After meeting European officials in Paris to discuss a ceasefire, Rubio said Washington needed to figure out soon whether a ceasefire was “doable in the short term.”

“Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on,” he told reporters.

But speaking on a trip to Italy, US Vice President JD Vance still insisted he was “optimistic” about ending the three-year war.

Trump promised to end the war within 24 hours of taking office but has little to show for his efforts so far.

He has embarked on a rapprochement quest with the Kremlin that has alarmed Kyiv and driven a wedge between the United States and its European allies.

He and Vance also had a blazing Oval Office row in February with Zelensky, whom he still accuses of bearing responsibility for Moscow’s invasion.

Trump insisted that he was not being “played” by Moscow, which is accused by Ukraine of dragging its feet.

“My whole life has been one big negotiation and I know when people are playing us and I know when they’re not,” the billionaire property tycoon added.

– ‘Mockery’ –

Zelensky meanwhile slammed the latest attacks on his country, which came just days before Easter.

Kyiv earlier announced it had received the bodies of 909 soldiers from Russia.

“This is how Russia started Good Friday — with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Shahed drones. A mockery of our people and cities,” Zelensky said on Telegram.

Russia said it had hit “key drone production sites” and Ukrainian military airfields.

Putin last month rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for a full and unconditional pause in the conflict, while the Kremlin has made a truce in the Black Sea conditional on the West lifting certain sanctions.

Trump has also repeatedly expressed anger and frustration at Zelensky in a marked break from his predecessor, Joe Biden.

Ukraine is set to sign a deal next week in Washington that would give the United States sweeping access to its mineral resources.

European powers have meanwhile been seeking a seat at the table in the negotiations, particularly as Trump’s administration insists the continent should share the burden for Ukraine’s security.

France hosted meetings between US and European officials in Paris on Thursday, saying the talks had launched a “positive process.”

The meetings included French President Emmanuel Macron, Rubio and US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Many allies have however been alarmed by Witkoff — who recently met Putin in Russia — repeating Moscow’s talking points about the war.

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A new study published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters has revealed that switching from diesel to electric trains on the San Francisco Bay Area’s Caltrain commuter rail line has dramatically improved air quality. The research found that riders’ exposure to black carbon, a known carcinogen, decreased by an average of 89%.

The electrification of the Caltrain system also resulted in a significant reduction in ambient black carbon concentrations within and around the San Francisco station.

“The transition from diesel to electric trains occurred over just a few weeks, and yet we saw the same drop in black carbon concentrations in the station as California cities achieved from 30 years of clean air regulations,” said study senior author Joshua Apte, a professor of environmental engineering and environmental health at the University of California, Berkeley. “It really adds to the case for electrifying the many other rail systems in the US that still use old, poorly regulated diesel locomotives.”

Caltrain operates the busiest commuter rail system in the western US, carrying millions of passengers a year along its 47-mile route between San Francisco and San Jose. Over the course of six weeks in August and September 2024, the system retired all 29 of its diesel locomotives and replaced them with 23 new electric trains. The debut of the new trains was the culmination of a $2.44 billion modernisation and decarbonisation project that first launched in 2017.

Apte, an expert in air quality monitoring, was inspired to pursue the study after visiting a Caltrain station in August 2024, when the very first electric trains were being introduced. 

“I was stunned at how much the station smelt like diesel smoke and how noisy it was from the racket of diesel locomotives idling away at the platforms, dumping smoke out into the community,” Apte said. “A light bulb went off my head – I realised this would all be going away in a few weeks.”

After securing the support of Caltrain, Apte and study lead author Samuel Cliff quickly mobilised, installing black carbon detectors at Caltrain stations and carrying portable air quality detectors aboard the trains. For four weeks, they tracked the rapid improvements in air quality as old diesel locomotives were replaced by new electric trains. 

“A lot of these transitions happen pretty slowly. This one happened in a blink of an eye,” Apte said. “We had the unique opportunity to capture the ancillary public health benefits.”

According to Apte and Cliff’s calculations, the reduction in black carbon exposure achieved from Caltrain’s electrification cut excess cancer deaths by 51 per 1 million people for riders and 330 per 1 million people for train conductors.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday that the U.S. and China both have trade grievances, but the world’s two largest economies needed to reduce uncertainty and agree on a fairer, rules-based trading system.

Georgieva, speaking at an event in Washington ahead of next week’s IMF and World Bank spring meetings, also welcomed India’s decision to reduce trade barriers and said that tariffs elsewhere could also drop amid negotiations over President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Georgieva refrained from directly criticizing Trump’s tariff assault on its trading partners, noting that an increase in tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers were feeding negative perceptions of the multilatersl system.

“This feeling of unfairness in some places fits the narrative, ‘we play by the rules while others game the system without penalty,'” Georgieva said. “Trade imbalances steer trade tensions.”

She said that the U.S. had grievances around China’s intellectual property practices and non-tariff barriers, while China is seeking U.S. engagement that would put both economies on a solid footing.

“We would like to see a reduction in uncertainty, and it is hard to get there if the two largest economies are still finding their footing and when, obviously, from the perspective of the world economy, it is important that the result of all this is a more, fairer, rule-based system,” Georgieva said.

The IMF chief said that India was uneasy with reducing tariffs and trade barriers, but “India is now doing it.” She added that this would be helpful for the country’s growth prospects.

She said it was possible that tariffs and other trade barriers also could come down in the European Union as well and could encourage more bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements.

“Well, in injecting this moment, yes, it is bilateral discussions, but I expect this to lead to some action around reducing, eliminating barriers that could have broader benefit for the world,” Georgieva said.

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The U.S. Supreme Court said on Thursday it will hear arguments next month over Donald Trump’s bid to broadly enforce his executive order to restrict automatic birthright citizenship, a key pillar of the Republican president’s hardline approach toward immigration.

The justices, in an unsigned order, did not immediately act on a request by Trump’s administration to narrow the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Washington state, Massachusetts and Maryland that halted his January 20 order while the matter is litigated.

Instead, the court deferred any decision on that request until it hears arguments in the case set on May 15.

Trump’s order, signed on his first day back in office, directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident.

In a series of lawsuits, plaintiffs including 22 Democratic state attorneys general, immigrant rights advocates and some expectant mothers argued that Trump’s order violates a right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, that provides that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.

The 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause states that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who is helping to lead one of the lawsuits challenging Trump’s order, said his office looks forward to presenting arguments in the case.

“Birthright citizenship was enshrined in the Constitution in the wake of the Civil War, is backed by a long line of Supreme Court precedent and ensures that something as fundamental as American citizenship cannot be turned on or off at the whims of a single man,” Platkin said in a statement.

The U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The administration contends that the 14th Amendment, long understood to confer citizenship to virtually anyone born in the United States, does not extend to immigrants who are in the country illegally or even to immigrants whose presence is lawful but temporary, such as university students or those on work visas.

The administration’s request to the Supreme Court, however, did not seek the court’s review of the constitutionality of Trump’s order. Instead, it used the legal battle to press the Supreme Court to tackle nationwide, or “universal,” injunctions that federal judges have issued impeding aspects of Trump’s various executive orders to reshape national policy, including birthright citizenship. Universal injunctions can prevent the government from enforcing a policy against anyone, instead of just the individual plaintiffs who sued to challenge the policy.

An 1898 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case called United States v. Wong Kim Ark long has been interpreted as guaranteeing that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to American citizenship. Trump’s Justice Department has argued that the court’s ruling in that case was narrower, applying to children whose parents had a “permanent domicile and residence in the United States.”

Trump’s birthright citizenship order “reflects the original meaning, historical understanding and proper scope of the Citizenship Clause,” wrote U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer, representing the administration. Sauer said that universal birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and “birth tourism” in which people travel to the United States to give birth to secure citizenship for their children.

UNIVERSAL INJUNCTIONS

Proponents of universal injunctions have said they are an efficient check on presidential overreach, and have stymied actions deemed unlawful by presidents of both parties. Critics have said they exceed the authority of district judges and politicize the judiciary.

Sauer said in a written filing that a “small subset of federal district courts tars the entire judiciary with the appearance of political activism,” issuing 28 nationwide injunctions against Trump’s administration in February and March.

The plaintiffs criticized the administration’s focus on the scope of the lower court orders instead of their conclusions that Trump’s directive conflicts with the Constitution.

Washington state had urged the Supreme Court to reject the administration’s “myopic” request given that Trump’s order is “flagrantly unconstitutional.”

“Recognizing that the citizenship-stripping order is impossible to defend on the merits, the federal government frames its application as an opportunity to address the permissibility of nationwide injunctions,” the state added.

In asking the court to enforce Trump’s order except against individual plaintiffs who challenged it, Sauer said the states do not have the requisite legal standing to assert the individuals’ rights under the citizenship clause.

In the Washington state lawsuit, brought by Washington state, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon and several pregnant women – Seattle-based U.S. District Judge John Coughenour issued his injunction on February 6 against Trump’s order. During a hearing in the case, Coughenour, an appointee of Republican former President Ronald Reagan, called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional.”

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 19 refused to put the judge’s injunction on hold.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

At least six people were hurt, one of them critically, after a mass shooting at a Florida university on Thursday, hospital officials said.

The campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee was locked down after gunfire erupted, with students ordered to shelter in place.

Local media, citing a police spokesperson, reported one man was in custody.

The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper said the spokesperson did not confirm the identity of the man, or comment on social media reports that there was more than one shooter.

Witnesses spoke of chaos as people began running through the sprawling campus when shots rang out in the area of the student union.

“Everyone just started running out of the student union,” a witness named Wayne told local news station WCTV.

“About a minute later, we heard about eight to 10 gunshots.”

The eyewitness said he saw one man who appeared to have been shot in the midsection.

“The whole entire thing was just surreal. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“Everything was really quiet, than all chaotic.”

The university, a public institution with more than 40,000 students, warned all those on campus to take shelter.

“An active shooter has been reported in the area of Student Union,” the university said on social media.

“Police are on scene or on the way. Continue to seek shelter and await further instructions. Lock and stay away from all doors and windows and be prepared to take additional protective measures.”

A statement from Tallahassee Memorial Hospital said doctors were “actively receiving and caring for patients.”

A spokesperson for the hospital told AFP: “We have six patients, one in critical condition, and the rest in serious condition,” confirming they were hurt in the shooting.

Student Sam Swartz told the Tallahassee Democrat he had been in the basement of the student union when shooting started.

“Everyone started freaking out,” Swartz said, adding he had heard around 10 shots.

A group of eight people, who were working on a project, huddled in a hallway and barricaded themselves with trash cans and plywood.

“I remember learning to do the best you can to make them take time because they don’t want to do anything that takes time, they’re just trying to get as many people,” Swartz said.

Footage on social media showed a stream of young adults walking through corridors with their hands in the air as they evacuated the building.

Mass shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, where a constitutional right to bear arms trumps calls for stricter rules.

Despite widespread public support for tighter control on firearms, including  restricting the sale of high-capacity clips and limiting the availability of automatic weapons of war, an entrenched political establishment refuses to act.

A tally by the non-profit Gun Violence Archive shows there have been at least 81 mass shootings — which it defines as four or more people shot — in the United States so far this year.

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.

Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with software maker Palantir and drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.

In his January 27 executive order, Trump cited a missile attack as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”

All three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have been major political supporters of Trump. Musk has donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, and now serves as a special adviser to the president working to cut government spending through his Department of Government Efficiency.

Despite the Pentagon’s positive signals to the SpaceX group, some sources stressed the decision process for Trump’s Golden Dome is in its early stages. Its ultimate structure and who is selected to work on it could change dramatically in the coming months.

The three companies met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement, sources said.

A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down, three of the sources said. The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites, these sources said.

One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.”

SpaceX and Musk have declined to comment on whether Musk is involved in any of the discussions or negotiations involving federal contracts with his businesses.

The Pentagon did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters, only saying it will deliver “options to the President for his decision in line with the executive order and in alignment with White House guidance and timelines.”

The White House, SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril also did not respond to questions.

SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE

In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright.

The subscription model, which has not been previously reported, could skirt some Pentagon procurement protocols allowing the system to be rolled out faster, the two sources said. While the approach would not violate any rules, the government may then be locked into a subscription and lose control over its ongoing development and pricing, they added.

Some Pentagon officials have expressed concerns internally about relying on the subscription-based model for any part of the Golden Dome, two sources told Reuters. Such an arrangement would be unusual for such a large and critical defense program.

U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein has been in talks on whether SpaceX should be the owner and operator of its part of the system, the two sources said. Other options include having the U.S. own and operate the system, or having the U.S. own it while contractors handle operations. Guetlein did not respond to a request for comment.

Retired Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a top SpaceX advisor to Musk, has been involved in the company’s recent discussions with senior defense and intelligence leaders, the two sources said. O’Shaughnessy did not respond to requests for comment.

Should the group led by SpaceX win a Golden Dome contract, it would be the biggest win for Silicon Valley in the lucrative defense contracting industry and a blow to the traditional contractors.

However, those long-standing contractors, such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing and RTX are expected to be big players in the process as well, people familiar with the companies said. Lockheed Martin put up a webpage as a part of its marketing efforts.

MANY BIDS

The Pentagon has received interest from more than 180 companies keen to help develop and build the Golden Dome, according to a U.S. official, including defense startups like Epirus, Ursa Major and Armada. Members of the White House’s National Security Council were briefed by a handful of companies about their capabilities, four sources said.

The Pentagon’s number two, former private equity investor Steve Feinberg, will be a key decision-maker for Golden Dome, two U.S. defense officials said.

Feinberg co-founded Cerberus Capital Management which has invested in the cutting-edge hypersonic missiles industry but not in SpaceX. Feinberg, who did not respond to a request for comment, has said he would divest of all his interests in Cerberus when he joined the administration.

Some experts believe the overall cost for Golden Dome could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. The Pentagon established several timelines for capabilities to be delivered starting with early 2026 to those delivered after 2030.

SpaceX is pitching for the part of the Golden Dome initiative called the “custody layer,” a constellation of satellites that would detect missiles, track their trajectory, and determine if they are heading toward the U.S., according to two sources familiar with SpaceX’s goals.

SpaceX has estimated the preliminary engineering and design work for the custody layer of satellites would cost between $6 billion and $10 billion, two of the sources said. In the last five years, SpaceX has launched hundreds of operational spy satellites and more recently several prototypes, which could be retrofitted to be used for the project, the sources said.

Reuters reviewed an internal Pentagon memo from Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth issued shortly before a February 28 deadline to senior Pentagon leadership asking them for initial Golden Dome proposals and calling for the “acceleration of the deployment” of constellations of satellites.

The time frame could give SpaceX an advantage because of its fleet of rockets, including the Falcon 9, and existing satellites that could be repurposed for the missile defense shield, the people familiar with the plan said.

Despite these advantages, some of those familiar with the discussions said it was uncertain whether the SpaceX group would be able to efficiently set up a system with new technology in a cost-effective way that can protect the United States from attack.

“It remains to be seen whether SpaceX and these tech companies will be able to pull any of this off,” said one of the sources. “They’ve never had to deliver on an entire system that the nation will need to rely on for its defense.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)