Experts are scratching their heads at President Trump’s ambitious, three-year timeline for Golden Dome, a next-generation missile defense system he says is essential for the future of U.S.

Elon Musk, after months omnipresent in the White House, was nowhere near the Oval Office on May 20 when Donald Trump announced his new “Golden Dome” space weapons system. He didn’t have to be. He had already maneuvered his companies to benefit substantially from the $25 billion Trump said he would spend immediately and the hundreds of billions in federal contracts the new effort will spawn.