They have some interest in a "special mission" version, a common aerospace euphemism for militarized.
They also claim to be a potential candidate for a next gen Air Force One.
That's the game with aerospace startups though. The CEO gets everyone wrapped around a "vision" for some gonna-save-humanity green peace machine (insert obligatory disaster response mission) and then once everyone is hooked you look up one day from your cruise missile design and wonder WTF just happened...
Source: have worked for several of these kinds of startups, have seen this happen pretty much everywhere.
I can't think of a single aerospace company that is not dual-use. I doubt Boom is building with that in mind but if they're around in 50 years, I'd be shocked if they did not have a thriving defense business.
Lockheed Martin Space employs quarter of their total workforce and does both, they built the Hubble, and now working on Orion and so on. Key components of Hubble did come from "dual-use" technology i.e. spy satellites.
The military has never had an operational supersonic transport aircraft. It's not a high enough priority for them to fund development of one from scratch, but if it's available on the civilian market then they'll probably buy a few. There are a few potential missions such as dignitary transport or rapid delivery of special operations teams.
If Boom succeeds in making a supercruise engine that can stay supersonic without needing afterburners, then the military may be interested because that will be cheaper than their current engines that need afterburners and use more fuel.
How is that special? The military already has the F-22 which can supercruise just fine. Or the Eurofighter if your military isn’t the USAF.
And also, fuel cost is probably the last concern of an Air Force. Maybe logistics of supplying fuel in an actual war is important, but I think the money for buying the fuel itself is basically zero compared to maintenance and getting the plane in the first place.
The F16 is already cheap, proven, integrated with everything, and available in great numbers. The Air Force also has a super sonic bomber in the B1 lancer, and a mass produced supersonic stealth fighter/bomber in the F35, which is actually pretty cost effective despite its public perception. Maybe there's a place for a large supersonic transport but the Air Force also has a lot of very heavy logistics aircraft already.
You should be asking yourself why the US would buy a supersonic military aircraft when they've spent the last 70 years moving AWAY from higher speeds because it doesn't provide any value.
Why would you spend a single dollar on making your launch platform go a little bit faster when the thing you are launching goes faster than Mach 4? And that was true in the 80s.
Power output is important but top speed is not a priority. The B1 Program was cut partially because you could just buy 100 stealthy cruise missiles for the price of one B1 bomber which the Air Force did not think was more survivable than a B52. In the 80s.
Every country has built slower planes entirely because higher sustained top speed just means a more expensive engine, more fuel usage, and more frequent maintenance.
Boom insists they will somehow magically overcome all of those problems.
I'm not saying that supersonic aircraft is particularly useful. I'm saying that it's not widely presented in the USAF.
I'd say that manned military aircraft should generally be on decline, and manned fighter aircraft, tenfold so. The future belongs to drones that can withstand 30G, and have the "brain" more evenly distributed within the craft to increase survivability, and which can carry extra 1000 lb of payload because they have no human + cockpit + ejector seat + life support system on board.
