Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk.”
Elon Musk biographer admits suggestion SpaceX head blocked Ukraine drone attack was wrong:
Has the precedent ever been dissatisfaction with the private ownership? Or did we we actually require federalizing the output of those companies for national security reasons?
Genuinely curious because apparently I’m the only one who thinks nationalizing Starlink is an extreme response.
Admittedly, most examples I can think of for nationalizing things withing the US have been either when a vital industry (usually railroads) shuts down due to bankruptcy or labor disputes, or companies partly owned by foreign powers that the US ends up at war with, which I suppose could both be called national security reasons. That being said, while the Ukraine war doesnt directly threaten the security of the US, beyond I suppose the small risk of it somehow dragging the US in directly, its pretty clear that the country is not really neutral in all this either, so at the very least Musk’s actions here work directly against US foreign policy goals. Admittedly I do agree that nationalizing starlink is a bit extreme, Im not sure that the US government is necessarily a great choice to run a global internet service, especially one that is somewhat different to other companies of the same type (it operates vastly more satellites to my knowledge than other similar operations), but I do feel that threatening to nationalize SpaceX might be a decent way to get Elon to play ball, so to speak.
There is plenty of precedent for nationalizing companies, and for that matter, it doesn’t have to be the military one would give it to anyway.
Has the precedent ever been dissatisfaction with the private ownership? Or did we we actually require federalizing the output of those companies for national security reasons?
Genuinely curious because apparently I’m the only one who thinks nationalizing Starlink is an extreme response.
Admittedly, most examples I can think of for nationalizing things withing the US have been either when a vital industry (usually railroads) shuts down due to bankruptcy or labor disputes, or companies partly owned by foreign powers that the US ends up at war with, which I suppose could both be called national security reasons. That being said, while the Ukraine war doesnt directly threaten the security of the US, beyond I suppose the small risk of it somehow dragging the US in directly, its pretty clear that the country is not really neutral in all this either, so at the very least Musk’s actions here work directly against US foreign policy goals. Admittedly I do agree that nationalizing starlink is a bit extreme, Im not sure that the US government is necessarily a great choice to run a global internet service, especially one that is somewhat different to other companies of the same type (it operates vastly more satellites to my knowledge than other similar operations), but I do feel that threatening to nationalize SpaceX might be a decent way to get Elon to play ball, so to speak.
@GentlemanLoser @CarbonIceDragon maybe people agree that it is an extreme measure, but see the situation as sufficiently serious and urgent