What to Do About Elon Musk?

How did U.S. space and military communications programs become so dependent on one weird Trump ally whose actions border on treason?

by Robert Kuttner
October 29, 2024

Just as Elon Musk has gone all in for Donald Trump, donating a total of $132 million, commandeering Trump’s ground game operation, posting even more over-the-top tweets than the campaign’s own messages, and hoping to take over several realms of policy, we learn courtesy of The Wall Street Journal that Musk has had several backchannel conversations with Vladimir Putin. This is the same Musk whose SpaceX company is used by NASA for the majority of its rocket launches, and whose Starlink system of low-orbit satellites is the basis for some military communications.

All of this has occurred at a time the U.S. has been redoubling its efforts to keep sensitive technologies with military uses out of the hands of China. But when it comes to the most sensitive space and communications satellite technologies, the fox is not only already in the chicken coop. The fox owns the chicken coop.

According to the Journal, in February Musk called on his echo chamber to lobby the Senate to vote down an aid package for Ukraine. “There is no way in hell that Putin is going to lose,” Musk said during a February audio event on X.

Early in the war, the U.S. thanked Musk for helping Ukraine by providing Starlink for Ukraine’s battlefield communications. But later, it was revealed that Musk had denied a request by Ukraine to enable Starlink in Crimea to allow an attack on Russian ships. In effect, Musk has his own foreign policy, and it increasingly tilted toward Russia

https://prospect.org/power/2024-10-29-elon-musk-spacex-putin-treason/