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The author is professor of area coverage and worldwide affairs at George Washington College’s House Coverage Institute
The feud between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump is not any mere sideshow of American political theatre. It’s a destabilising conflict with actual penalties for the governance of area and world safety. Trump’s threats to cancel SpaceX contracts and his followers’ calls to nationalise the corporate are usually not simply reckless; they’re probably catastrophic.
On the centre is the area and satellite tv for pc firm that Musk has remodeled into an industrial behemoth. No different firm or state actor can match SpaceX’s cadence, cost-efficiency or orbital infrastructure. Since 2019, it has launched extra satellites than the remainder of the world mixed. Greater than 7,300 are at the moment energetic. Its nearest competitor, OneWeb, a subsidiary of French group Eutelsat, manages fewer than 700.
This offers SpaceX an outsized function in each civil and nationwide area efforts. The US is determined by it to ferry astronauts to and from the Worldwide House Station, a crucial functionality since Nasa’s retirement of the area shuttle in 2011.
The Pentagon is equally reliant: SpaceX has performed roughly 70 per cent of profitable nationwide safety area launches since 2019. It has additionally secured over $2bn in categorised and unclassified contracts, together with work growing persistent imagery for the Nationwide Reconnaissance Workplace, safe communications for the House Power and missile warning for the House Growth Company. These missions are essential to the US effort to construct a resilient, proliferated area structure able to surviving battle.
Threats to cancel SpaceX contracts carry severe authorized and geopolitical dangers. A politically motivated assault on SpaceX wouldn’t solely endanger these contracts, it will do lasting injury to the credibility of the US as a dependable associate in strategic industries.
A compelled divestment, liquidity crunch or regulatory motion might set off important disruption throughout world area and telecoms networks. The feud with Trump escalates these dangers, elevating structural liabilities for the strategic autonomy of the US and its allies. It illustrates the best way wherein geopolitical danger, regulatory scrutiny and operational fragility have all converged in a single individual: Musk.
Starlink, the satellite tv for pc communications subsidiary of SpaceX, has been indispensable to Ukraine’s warfare effort, enabling safe communications, drone operations and artillery co-ordination. However management over the community rests with Musk himself. This can be a clear problem to the precept of Westphalian sovereignty — the notion that states alone management the usage of pressure inside and past their borders. The concept that a billionaire government can form navy operations with out democratic oversight or authorized accountability should concern each authorities that depends on industrial satellite tv for pc providers.
What will be completed? First, the US authorities should cut back its dependence on any single industrial supplier. Diversification of launch providers and provide chains is important. Second, nationwide defence and international coverage mustn’t hinge on the selections of personal people. Clear authorized and institutional frameworks are wanted to delineate duties and authorities within the area area. Third, allies and companions ought to co-ordinate to make sure that important communications and satellite tv for pc providers can’t be held hostage by home political rivalries or industrial disputes.
The Musk-Trump feud shouldn’t be merely a private combat — it’s a wake-up name. Even when their relationship is repaired, the chance have to be decreased. Whether or not via laws, worldwide norms or deeper public-private partnerships, we should be sure that we govern crucial area capabilities extra responsibly.
