For obvious reasons I think it's pretty safe to say we can count on at least the next four years of zero regulation or government scrutiny of any company Musk is involved in, monopoly-related or otherwise.
But you may have noticed companies like Boeing getting white-glove treatment from regulators.
You know, deciding that their competitor's cheaper aircraft should be subject to a 300% tariff. Not burdening them with too much scrutiny about whether that modified aircraft should keep the same type rating. Taking their word for it when they say every aircraft has 100% of the door bolts installed. If they have broken some regulations, maybe giving a $150 billion company a $250 million fine.
Not ceasing to regulate - just regulators with broad discretionary power exercising that discretion in line with the will of the politicians who appoint them.
That's not unique to SpaceX and I don't think that's wrong as such, although people argue that military interests in general get too much leeway.
SpaceX has more military applications than Starshield alone. For example, SpaceX's assembly line will be pumping out (eventually) a rocket a day. That's the plan.
From a military perspective, Starship is supposed to be able to send 100+ people on long space trips. If that is instead to deliver troops to other parts of the planet, I'm sure hundreds could be packed in. Imagine a fast deploy with parachute capability for personnel and cargo, just as with planes, but with immense range and deploy speed.
You may wonder why, but aircraft carriers and their fleets are considered less usable as deploy platforms, due to increased vulnerability. If the US continues to withdraw from the world stage, its ability to deploy could be affected by a reduction in 'friendly' regional countries and thus leased bases. I don't see any issue with this now, but once a large conflict breaks out, who knows... and this could vastly enhance Starship or equiv as a deploy platform.
I'm sure some reading this will balk at "large war" and "never happen" and so on, but Starshield is an example of a platform for such a large conflict. So considering the use of Starship itself as a lightning speed, emergency deploy platform is important.
There are all sorts of gotchas, such as being shot down, but of course those same issues exist with planes or ships.
Frankly, with the state of AI, the close-to-real Android + military robots, along with drones, Starship would be best served by mass fly-over and deploy of 100k small drones, or hundreds of military robot platforms, or.. well, lots of things.
This really isn't about Starship of course. It's just that we've gotten to the point where this sort of platform is very usable. I can't imagine sending in a large-cost asset like this for general troop deploy, but I can for special ops, weapons platforms in low-risk flyovers, and a variety of other use cases.
And in times of war, things get nationalized too.
Interesting thoughts on the logistics side.
It looks just like an ICBM, because it is an ICBM. I doubt Russian and Chinese air defence forces will wait for them to land and see if it’s full of people or plutonium before launching a retaliatory strike.
(We've been dropping people and gear for 100 years by plane. And yes, it can be done with Starship.)
On the side of civilian transportation, there is nothing to stop normal passenger planes from having nukes on board. The shape of the object is irrelevant.
Communication is key.
Yeah, not many will volunteer for "the firing line."
Musk isn't anything new or different here. The idea that he'll just be above the law is fearmongering hyperbole though. Sure he'll get favorable treatment and be able to push his agenda to degrees well out of reach of us commoners. No more than if he'd just stayed in the shadows and bought his politicians and judges and bureaucrats and generals like a normal billionaire.
Is it? If there is anything the 45th and the aftermath has shown is that there are people clearly above the law. And even without the 45th, Musk himself has escaped justice many many times - especially the SEC whose explicit orders he openly defied multiple times.
Not that you can't criticize them, I just don't see exaggeration being interesting or helpful there. Also I think caring about certain corruption or conflicts of interest when it happens to politicians one disagrees with is fairly easy to be seen as being divisive or politically motivated even if it's not. I thought that wheeling out the architects of the Iraq war to denounce Trump's corruption/incompetence/bad foreign policy/etc was particularly ironic and sad, for example, even if they might have been technically correct.
Musk isn't going to be immune to federal regulators. I'm sure he'll get the kinds of favors that come with buying politicians as all the rest of them get though.
Well just reading through Project 2025 is very sobering. It's not like old times where what they wanted had to be read through the lines any more, it's right out in the open what they want to do - and even getting a quarter of their plans actually passed through is a very, very troubling perspective.
> I thought that wheeling out the architects of the Iraq war to denounce Trump's corruption/incompetence/bad foreign policy/etc was particularly ironic and sad, for example, even if they might have been technically correct.
A sad consequence of people no longer debating policy on a shared common ground based on facts, but on tribalism, lies and propaganda instead.
> > I thought that wheeling out the architects of the Iraq war to denounce Trump's corruption/incompetence/bad foreign policy/etc was particularly ironic and sad, for example, even if they might have been technically correct.
> A sad consequence of people no longer debating policy on a shared common ground based on facts, but on tribalism, lies and propaganda instead.
Yep. When they do that it does make you wonder who shares common ground with whom, and who spreads lies and propaganda about what.
And then for commentary: I'm the sort of person "intense" enough that I'd want to pounce even on your comment about not bringing up trump, but that overall phrasing was such a perfect way to communicate what you mean, and your good intentions, to me when you at first read (to me) as apologist and unwarrantedly dismissive.
That's all, often in these times it feels hard to even achieve this basic level of communication across personal and political differences. I really admire it.
If the role truly is advisory I wouldn't personally see that as a conflict of interest. Regulators are often asking for advise from those they are meant to regulate without it getting flagged as a conflict of interest (for better or worse).
Carter placed his peanut farm in a blind trust to avoid precisely that - sadly, we have seen a complete erosion of norms, standards, and morals in public life.
Politicians and bureaucrats can and should consult with the people they govern of course. The "proper" way to do that would be via reasonably open and transparent process that is open to interested parties so competitors, customers, unions, scientists could have their say.
Again I'm fully aware this isn't how things actually work, so I'm not saying Musk is really doing anything outside the norm in American politics by buying a seat at the table. He's just being slightly more open about it than most of them.
From the FAA and Boeing to multiple health agencies and pharmaceutical companies, there are a ton of advisory type roles that involve industry leaders "recommending" policy. I'd be surprised if Musk ended up at the top of the list when sorted by impact, counted either by financial impact or number of rules and regulations impacted by industry.
I’d say it’s just as likely that six months from now there will be a falling out, Musk will be called a pathetic loser, government agencies will be turned against him, etc.
If past behavior is any kind of indicator, it’s more likely than not. I would not be surprised if we see Musk doing a perp walk within 12 months.
The nation will mourn his heroic patriotism. Then business will carry on as usual, only more so, with a more compliant leader.
[a] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13175928 ("Trump Names Elon Musk, Uber CEO to Advisory Team – TheHill (thehill.com)", 92 comments)
[b] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465667 ("Elon Musk quits Trump advisory councils, saying, 'Climate change is real' (latimes.com)", 4 comments)
Elon will fuck up and his money won’t save him from what comes after that.
It sounds to me like the 22nd Amendment and the Article II natural-born citizenship requirement are also only enforceable by Congress. If you're making your plans based on a theory that Congress is able to do the right thing, or that the Supreme Court is not a hyper-partisan institution, I would have a strong C because plans A and B are pretty questionable.
Why not go further and say that the "natives" also aren't natives since they also migrated to the Americas over the Bering land bridge?
Call that whatever you want.
> By your logic, if the current descendants of people who have been here for many centuries by now aren't native.
Are you suggesting that being born in a place makes one native? I'll accept that definition. Now go convince the rest of the world to update their definition of Native American.
Again, silly, pedantic social justice posturing because the context of the comment about Musk not being native is obviously in reference to this, not native American history.
As the other reply above states, the first nations, as they're called where I'm from, often suffered terribly at the hands of white settlers historically, and there's no honest way to deny that, but it's a separate matter from discussions about what makes a person American today.