‘Musk’s SpaceX has nearly total control of the world’s satellite internet through its Starlink unit.’ Photograph: Julia Nikhinson/AP
Shortly after the apparent second assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Elon Musk wrote in a now deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” with an emoji of a person thinking.
Musk later said his post was intended as a joke. But it could be interpreted as a call to murder Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – at least by one of Musk’s almost 200 million followers – which is presumably why the Secret Service is investigating it.
Under 18 US Code Section 871, threatening a president or vice-president or inciting someone to harm them is a felony that can result in a large fine and up to five years in prison.
Yet even as Musk posted a potential death threat against the sitting commander-in-chief, his multiple defense contracts with the US government have given him access to highly sensitive national security information.
Musk has reportedly gained national security clearance notwithstanding his admitted use of drugs, not necessarily illegally: the tech billionaire, who says he has submitted to random drug testing at the request of the government, has smoked weed in public and also uses ketamine (for which he claims to have a prescription).
Apart from the drugs, when was the last time the US government gave access to sensitive national security information to someone who posted a potential death threat against the president and vice-president?
Underlying this is a broader question: when in history has one unelected individual held such sway over US national security?
Musk’s SpaceX has nearly total control of the world’s satellite internet through its Starlink unit. With little regulation or oversight, Musk has already put more than 4,500 Starlink satellites into orbit around the globe, accounting for more than half of all active satellites. He plans to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the coming years.
SpaceX and its Starlink system have become strategically critical to the American military. Starlink is providing connectivity to the US navy. The US space force signed a $70m contract with SpaceX late last year for military-grade low-Earth-orbit satellite capabilities. According to Reuters, the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees US spy satellites, has a $1.8bn contract with SpaceX.
This gives Musk, the richest person in the world, remarkable power. Single-handedly, he can decide to shut down a country’s access to Starlink and the internet. He also can also gain access to sensitive information gathered by Starlink. “Between, Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever,” Musk tweeted in April 2023.
Meanwhile, Nasa has increasingly outsourced spaceflight projects to SpaceX, including billions in contracts for multiple moon trips and $843m to build a vehicle that will take the International Space Station out of commission.
Conflicts of interest between Musk’s ventures around the world and US national security abound, and they are multiplying.
When Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine, Musk and SpaceX’s Starlink provided Ukraine with internet access, enabling the country to plan attacks and defend itself. (This was not a charitable move by Musk; most of the 20,000 terminals in the country were funded by outside sources such as the US government and those of the United Kingdom and Poland).
But in the fall of 2022, when Ukraine entered territory contested by Russia, Musk and SpaceX abruptly severed the connectivity. Musk explained at the time: “Starlink was barred from turning on satellite beams in Crimea at the time, because doing so would violate US sanctions against Russia!”
But who was Musk to decide what actions would or would not violate US sanctions?
In fact, it seems as if Musk was trying to push Ukraine to agree to Russia’s terms for ending the war.
At a conference in Aspen attended by business and political figures, he appeared to support Putin. “He was onstage, and he said: ‘We should be negotiating. Putin wants peace – we should be negotiating peace with Putin,’” Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, recalled. Musk seemed to have “bought what Putin was selling, hook, line, and sinker”.
Soon thereafter, Musk tweeted a proposal for his own peace plan, calling for referendums to redraw the borders of Ukraine and grant Russia control of Crimea. In subsequent tweets, Musk portrayed a Russian victory as virtually inevitable, and attached maps highlighting eastern Ukrainian territories, some of which, he argued, “prefer Russia”.
US foreign policy experts also worry about the conflicts of interest posed by Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X), given his business relationships and communications with the Chinese government. China has used X for disinformation campaigns.
Some are concerned that China may have leverage over Musk due to his giant Tesla factory in Shanghai, which accounts for over half of Tesla’s global deliveries and the bulk of its profits, and the battery factory he’s building there. “Elon Musk has deep financial exposure to China,” warned Mark Warner, US senator from Virginia, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee.
Most of these concerns, by the way, came before Musk reactivated the accounts of conspiracy theorists and white nationalists on X and began pushing his own rightwing narrative on the platform, and before he announced his support for Trump in the upcoming election and posted a potential incitement to assassinate Biden and Harris.
Elon Musk poses a clear and present danger to American national security. The sooner the US government revokes his security clearance, terminates its contracts with him and the entities he controls, and builds its own alternatives to Starlink and SpaceX, the safer America will be.
By Robert Reich
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Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com