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After SpaceX\u2019s blockbuster IPO last week, it\u2019s facing an agonizing crunch to show investors that it has a viable path to profitability.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for its CEO Elon Musk, he\u2019s spent years currying favor with any politicians who might stand in his way. He threw his whole weight<\/a> behind Donald Trump\u2019s presidential campaign in 2024, giving him extraordinary sway over the White House and the federal government.<\/p>\n One egregious example is his close relationship with Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, whose unabashed attempts to gain Musk\u2019s favor ultimately got him the job<\/a>. That\u2019s important because SpaceX\u2019s orbital Starlink broadband service is currently the rocket company\u2019s most significant source of revenue. And thanks to Musk\u2019s cozy bonds with Carr and the Trump administration, little stands in the way of SpaceX filling our planet\u2019s orbit with even more environmentally-damaging satellites<\/a> and occupying ever larger swathes of the frequency spectrum.<\/p>\n As TechDirt\u2018s Karl Bode points out<\/a>, Carr\u2019s FCC has bent over backwards to clear the way for Musk, from abandoning regulatory oversight to going after companies<\/a> that control parts of the spectrum that SpaceX wants for itself.<\/p>\n According to Bode, the Trump administration went as far as to hijack a 2021 infrastructure bill to redirect billions more to Musk \u2014 at the cost of efforts originally intended to make fiber internet access more affordable to rural Americans.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Pentagon has awarded SpaceX numerous multibillion-dollar contracts<\/a> to develop space-borne defense tech and a military communication network, once again highlighting how the newly-minted trillionaire\u2019s business successes have heavily relied on US government subsidies.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s SpaceX has also deeply ingrained itself with Trump\u2019s NASA, which has appointed<\/a> a Musk nominee<\/a> and close business partner as its administrator, and made the company a key part of its efforts to settle on the Moon. <\/p>\n In short, the conflicts of interest between Musk and the Trump administration have reached staggering levels. And to society, the implications of such blatant cronyism could be sweeping, from atrophying regulation and loss of accountability to further concentration of power and money among the wealthiest people on Earth.<\/p>\n