Elon Musk's control of space is even more entrenched than it seems. What dangers could that lead to?

[Celerity]

https://prospect.org/power/2025-05-19-rocketing-toward-monopoly-elon-musk-spacex/



Presidential sidekick Elon Musk has thus far been spared from the greatest risk to his interstellar empire: the continuity of hawkish antitrust enforcement between the Biden and Trump administrations. That’s good news for his company SpaceX and its subsidiary Starlink, which are in a plum position to dominate not only commercial space transportation, but space itself. By most accounts, Musk will soon depart government for the friendlier confines of his own private city after pulling out random wires from the federal motherboard. But if everything goes according to plan, the richest man on Earth will soon earn an even darker and stupider moniker: viceroy of low-Earth orbit.

More than half of satellites circling the Earth are currently owned by Starlink, launched into our atmosphere using SpaceX Falcon rockets, and the company is now petitioning to launch tens of thousands more. Starlink gained new eligibility from Trump’s Commerce Department to wire much of the underserved parts of the country with satellite internet. There are now Starlink satellite systems serving the White House, and Starlink contracts upgrading IT for a Federal Aviation Administration in disarray thanks to cuts by DOGE, Musk’s hand-selected government-destroying apparatus. If that wasn’t enough, Republicans could soon steer wireless spectrum auctions Starlink’s way, which could bulk up the company’s satellite capacity even further.

Meanwhile, SpaceX has raked in billions of dollars in government contracts sending satellites and astronauts into space, while also collecting millions from private entities using SpaceX rockets to further their own space enterprises. President Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year would shower further billions on SpaceX for a back-to-the-future missile defense system and manned flights to Mars and the moon.



The federal government’s reliance on SpaceX started well before the Trump administration, and for good reason. SpaceX rockets have proved efficient, reusable, and cost-effective. SpaceX enjoyed $3.8 billion in federal contracts in 2024, the last year of the Biden administration. But critics, including those inside the Department of Defense, have sounded the alarm on the increasing dominance of a single company. “Heaven forbid we have a mishap with a Falcon 9 launch,” Col. Richard Kniseley, an officer in the Space Force’s Commercial Space Office, told The New York Times last year. “That means it is grounded, right? And that means we could be without launch.” Kniseley’s concern is just one among many related to SpaceX dominating the full range of space services.

snip