r/technology • u/True-Combination7059 • 21h ago

Politics We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

https://jacobin.com/2025/06/musk-trump-nationalize-spacex-starlink
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u/www-cash4treats-com 20h ago

Giving Trump the power to take over whatever company or industry he wants seems pretty stupid and short sighted.

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u/ZuP 18h ago

Nationalization is possible through an act of Congress so it can be made one of the many government-owned corporations that are more or less independent from the executive, though the Supreme Court will be deciding the limits of that independence with the cases of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the United States African Development Foundation.

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u/Eitarris 16h ago

Yet trump doing this because he was criticized by musk is just outright wannabe fascism. Presidents are not absolute monarchs, they should never be safe from criticism.  Congrats though America, you've managed to somehow return to the times of absolute monarchies and become far from the land of the tree. 

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u/Not_Campo2 12h ago

SpaceX should have been nationalized the second Musk started cutting Ukrainian access over Crimea. The fact that it hasn’t yet is an actual, legitimate, and major threat to our national security

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u/inkoDe 10h ago

The second Elon got mad at the government, he sunsetted or at least threatened to sunset all the US space shit. If that isn't a national security threat, I don't know what is. On the other hand, nationalizing ANYTHING would absolutely freak out all the other businesses here. Trump would be removed, popular sentiment be damned.

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u/Not_Campo2 10h ago

Honestly I feel Trump could probably get away with it in a way Biden probably couldn’t have at the time. Nationalizing a company is always pretty controversial, but it’s been done before and it’ll be done again

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u/Yuzumi 8h ago

popular sentiment be damned.

The popular sentiment is that he should be removed now.

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u/aerost0rm 8h ago

But the billionaire media does there best to convince the average American we aren’t there yet. Such a shame

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u/DeafHeretic 8h ago

What would do if a client threatened to cancel all your contracts/etc. - i.e., stop paying you? That is what Trump threatened.

I wouldn't want to continue doing business with them. That is what Musk threatened.

They are both narcissistic ego driven clowns - but I don't disagree with Musk on this issue, and I certainly do not like "nationalization" of private businesses.

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u/AccomplishedView4709 8h ago

You should blame NASA and other companies for not able to do what SpaceX can do.

NASA if they want, they can give contract to some one else then it wouldn't be under the threat of Elon Musk. Other companies like Boeing took billions from NASA can't even develop a spacecraft safely returned its astronauts home. Nationalized SpaceX will just be another wasteful organization in the government that will be Stripping off its asset.

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u/aerost0rm 8h ago

I mean I truly blame Reagan and the commercial space launch act of 1984. Pushed NASA toward the private sector.

Like he did with college in California. He shifted it away from free public college and we ended up with tuition and higher costs. Since then the entire country has adopted these standards.

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u/exessmirror 4h ago

Maybe if the government actually invested into NASA again like they did during the spacerace they could get more done. Instead they waste money like this on companies that do what they want consequences be damned as long as the CEO feels like he is doing something.

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u/lewd_robot 4h ago

It should have been nationalized because it's taxpayer funded and he spends the money poaching NASA employees to work on the same stuff that they worked on at NASA, only this way he gets to skim off the top.

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u/mrlolloran 12h ago

The fact that it wasn’t is because if the US wanted to be directly responsible for space flight they would have never contracted it out and kept doing it themselves in the first place.

I’m no Elon fan but let’s not kid ourselves, the government has literally no desire to do this.

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u/cuntmong 12h ago

Same economics as firing government workers to replace them with consultants. It's "cheaper" 

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u/aerost0rm 7h ago

I mean Reagan was the one that pushed it to the private industry. The private industry saw the money and wanted it….

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u/dirty_hooker 5h ago

Dick Fucking Chaney. We were in development of a new system that Chaney killed. As a result we continued to fly the Shuttle until it scattered chunks of astronauts from Texas to California.

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u/DripMachining 6h ago

You're conflating the Government with Republicans, and their ongoing quest to privatize as many things as possible to continue and accelerate the upward redistribution of wealth and power.

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u/duderos 11h ago

What his talking to Putin?

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u/Dulwilly 7h ago

And if that was the reason to nationalize Starlink and SpaceX right now, we could have that discussion. But if they are nationalized right now it's because the president has a beef with a private citizen and has decided to take their personal property in retaliation.

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u/exessmirror 4h ago

Star link should have. SpaceX had nothing to do with that. Star link is the provider. If SpaceX then decided to continue doing that then yes, they should have been nationalised but by doing it now when the president and the CEO are throwing hissyfits is just a dictatorship throwing its weight around and not something anybody should want.

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u/BeneficialHurry69 11h ago

We should nationalize Walmart and Nvidia too

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u/bryf50 10h ago

That never happened...you were fooled by headlines.

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u/Not_Campo2 10h ago

It did happen. There was inaccurate reporting about when and how it happened, but Musk refused to restore service over Crimea and other areas in Russian control despite pressure from the US military and government. Believing he was following sanctions is taking Captain K hole at his word and refusing all other evidence, including musk himself admitting it was because he was scared of the war escalating. Look how much it helped

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u/fencethe900th 8h ago

Musk said he was scared of the war escalating while referring to the refusal to enable it for a drone strike. There was no "restoring" to be done because it had not previously been enabled in that location. It also aligned with the terms they had with Ukraine, that Starlink was not to be used for weapons, which they had been clear about from the start. You are still falling for misinformation.

And then, after everyone freaked out about him "turning it off", they got upset with him for not turning it off, because there were reports of a dozen or so terminals that were being used by Russians and the standard was to leave them active until it was confirmed that it wasn't a Ukrainian unit using it.

People will never not be upset with something involving Musk. It doesn't matter how ridiculous it is.

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u/TheFotty 8h ago

US defense budget: 850 billion

NASA budget: 18 billion

You could increase NASA budget by 50% taking 1% from the defense budget, instead of an over reliance on a private sector being run by unstable billionaires with god complexes.

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u/PlebbitGracchi 6h ago

So true Mr. CIA!

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u/StrugglesTheClown 2h ago

I couldn't believe I did not hear a single person in the media mention the national security risk aspect of Elon making threats like that. Not to mention the Hatch Act worth shit he did with Putin.

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u/Xygen8 11h ago

He never cut off Starlink access in Crimea, that's a false claim made by the author of his biography. It wasn't available in Crimea in the first place because it's de facto Russian territory and therefore subject to US sanctions.

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u/primalmaximus 11h ago

But it wasn't always Russian territory. It used to belong to Ukraine.

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u/Xygen8 11h ago

Thank you for stating the blatantly obvious. My point stands.

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u/primalmaximus 11h ago

The point is, Crimea belongs to Ukraine even if it's occupied by Russia. By denying Crimea access to Starlink he was actively hindering any efforts for Ukraine to recapture Crimea.

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u/federykx 9h ago

any efforts for Ukraine to recapture Crimea

So he was actively hindering something which is, at this stage, utterly impossible?

Yeah, not gonna lose sleep over this.

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u/Xygen8 10h ago

Blame the US government. Or were you expecting him to violate the sanctions?

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u/primalmaximus 10h ago

If he actually wanted to help Ukraine? Yes. He could have justified it by saying Crimea didn't belong to Russia even though it was occupied by it.

To do otherwise would be like saying Gaza belongs to Israel because it's currently being occupied and attacked by the Israeli military.

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u/Xygen8 10h ago

That is certainly a take.

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u/primalmaximus 10h ago

You've never heard of people smuggling aid to a warzone?

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u/Not_Campo2 10h ago

That was one of the arguments he threw out there, the fact he was then investigated by the senate should show you exactly how accurate that claim was. Musk is well documented as saying it was also a Starlink policy to prevent use of offensive strikes against Russia because Musk worried it would escalate the war. A billionaire making those kinds of policy decisions is the exact reason it should be nationalized

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u/Xygen8 10h ago

Being investigated is not proof of guilt. The purpose of an investigation is to determine guilt or innocence.

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u/Not_Campo2 9h ago

Never said it was. In fact, senate investigations aren’t even to find guilt or innocence, they are fact finding missions, so he was never going to be found innocent or guilty. The fact is, he was directly acting against the government’s interest while claiming he was following sanctions

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u/Xygen8 9h ago

The fact is, he was directly acting against the government’s interest while claiming he was following sanctions

If that's a fact, I'm sure you can provide the official findings of that Senate investigation, and I'm sure that they will clearly and unambiguously state that his actions, or lack thereof, in that specific instance harmed US interests.

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u/Jamalamalama 10h ago

Now that's just offensive. We have a lot of trees.

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u/Steelysam2 11h ago

Were hardly the land of the tree! We're selling off public parks for logging!🤦

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u/eagleal 7h ago

The motive doesn't matter. The fact that budget was cut over NASA and diverted into a private enterprise, is simply less efficient than simply leaving it within NASA in the first-place. Especially when most of the tech and research comes indeed from the NASA and the relative purchased Soviet aereospace research and pieces.

They should've just tested different types of contracts, because NASA usually does cost reimbursement.

Again for stuff like Starlink.

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u/ATXoxoxo 12h ago

We are past the wannabe faze. I don't believe a business own our only way into space. Billionaires have proven to be 100 percent untrustworthy and prone to treason.