Customer Lock-InWide moat

SpaceX's biggest customers are also its most captive. NASA relies on it to carry astronauts and cargo to the Space Station and has chosen it to land humans on the Moon; the Defense Department trusts it with the nation's most sensitive payloads and is building military constellations on its rockets. These are not relationships a customer swaps on price, because the certification, the flight heritage, and the sheer trust take years to build and cannot be transferred. Switching launch providers for a crewed mission or a spy satellite is a decision measured in years and national risk, not quarters.

That gives SpaceX a book of business with unusually deep roots — long-dated government contracts, mission-critical dependence, and a counterparty that would find it genuinely hard to leave even if it wished to. Lock-in born of certification and trust is among the stickiest there is, because the switching cost is not a fee but a multi-year, high-stakes qualification campaign the alternative provider has not yet passed — though New Glenn's 2025 landings started that clock¹.