Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 3: controlled by one man. Well, he's a legitimate, super genius, legitimate.
Speaker 4: He says.
Speaker 3: He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
Speaker 3: be different.
Speaker 1: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 3: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 3: on ed Elon.
Speaker 5: Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 6: Anything he does, he's fascinating people.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Elanink, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's
Speaker 3: March twenty six, twenty twenty four. I'm your host, David Papadopoulos.
Speaker 3: Our colleagues here at Bloomberg have a big investigation out
Speaker 3: this week into a black market problem that is vexing Starlink,
Speaker 3: the satellite operation of SpaceX. We have a special story
Speaker 3: from our sister show, The Big Take, that digs into
Speaker 3: that investigation and all the places starlink kits are being
Speaker 3: used where they shouldn't be. But before that, there's been
Speaker 3: plenty of news in elon Land, and we're going to
Speaker 3: round it up for you all rapid fire. First, Tesla
Speaker 3: will now do full self driving mode demonstrations for every
Speaker 3: new car buyer. Second, a federal judge tossed out a
Speaker 3: lawsuit that Musk's X had filed against the Center for
Speaker 3: Countering Digital Hate. Last will unpack an intercept investigation that
Speaker 3: found that X fought against the secrecy surrounding government surveillance
Speaker 3: of social media users while it was profiting from user
Speaker 3: data sales. To break all of this Elon News down,
Speaker 3: we have Danahull, who's our full time Elon Musk reporter.
Speaker 3: Hello Dana, Hello, And Max Schaffkin, senior reporter and editor
Speaker 3: at BusinessWeek.
Speaker 5: Good day, David, Good to see you.
Speaker 3: Max. Okay, so we're gonna start with these Tesla full
Speaker 3: self driving demos that are now, according to mister Musk
Speaker 3: Dani Hall, are now mandatory before anyone leaves a Tesla
Speaker 3: A lot explained.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so full self driving is a feature that you
Speaker 1: have to pay for. It currently costs twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And this is all about margins. I mean, we are
Speaker 1: at the end of the quarter. Tesla has got to
Speaker 1: move cars. It is in their interest to move cars
Speaker 1: that are as fully tricked out with all the options
Speaker 1: as possible, and so Musk is now basically saying via
Speaker 1: this email that we confirm that, like you know, the
Speaker 1: salespeople have to give a demo because people don't realize
Speaker 1: just how awesome FST is.
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry, so Danne to interrupt you. Sorry, So, I
Speaker 3: actually thought erroneously that this was some way, somehow about
Speaker 3: security and safety and making sure they're on the right
Speaker 3: side of the law with regulators. You're telling me it's
Speaker 3: actually them saying, hey, we really got to pedal this thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, perhaps I am a cynic, but we have a
Speaker 1: week left in the quarter, and this is like a
Speaker 1: really important quarter in terms of moving vehicles and making
Speaker 1: that profit. I mean, both things could be happening simultaneously.
Speaker 1: They want to be a little bit more careful about
Speaker 1: how they explain full self driving beta or full self
Speaker 1: driving capability to prospective customers, given the regulatory environment, given
Speaker 1: the fact that we're on the eve of some of
Speaker 1: these big autopilot lawsuits. But at the same time, twelve
Speaker 1: thousand dollars that's just all gravy. That is a big
Speaker 1: way for Tesla to make money. I mean, so I
Speaker 1: think both things are happening, and they're really kind of
Speaker 1: pushing this.
Speaker 5: There's no nothing in this memo about being more cautious
Speaker 5: or emphasizing the limitations of the technology, which is what
Speaker 5: you'd expect if the goal were to like head off
Speaker 5: potential litigation or regulation. Instead, it says just the opposite.
Speaker 5: It says, people don't understand how great this thing is
Speaker 5: from the point of view the regulators. Right, that's the
Speaker 5: opposite message that that Tesla could potentially be conveying. So
Speaker 5: I totally agree with Dana. I think this is about
Speaker 5: this is a sales thing. It's like you're in the
Speaker 5: car dealer and they want you to upgrade to the
Speaker 5: you know, LX package or you know over the GX
Speaker 5: and then whenever they're going to tell you how great
Speaker 5: the leather seats are in the clearcoat. This is Elon
Speaker 5: Musk's version of that. Right, This is a pure margin
Speaker 5: product that if he is able to get more people
Speaker 5: to adopt, would be very valuable, and of course has
Speaker 5: additional value down the road because because at least by
Speaker 5: by Tesla's account, all this data that they're collecting makes
Speaker 5: the system better.
Speaker 1: And I just like to point out, like if you
Speaker 1: go on the Tesla website today, and try to order
Speaker 1: a new model. Why it says you will receive one
Speaker 1: month trial a full self driving capability with a new
Speaker 1: vehicle purchase. So not only are they demoing it for
Speaker 1: you when you're there at the lot, but then if
Speaker 1: you buy the car, you get it for free. It's
Speaker 1: like a subscription, and then the idea is that you
Speaker 1: keep it.
Speaker 5: Is this like an app TV thing where like you
Speaker 5: get the three months and they start billing you if
Speaker 5: you don't cancel, do they bill you the twelve grand
Speaker 5: or do you have to like, you know, wire additional
Speaker 5: funds to like maintain your subscription.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you can do a subscription or you can
Speaker 1: just pay for it. I mean, I'd be very curious
Speaker 1: to see how the billing looks.
Speaker 3: What I will say is this, and then we will
Speaker 3: move on to point number two here. But you know
Speaker 3: this must be important for Elon and trying to drive
Speaker 3: sales of this thing. The quote that we have from
Speaker 3: the memo he sent out to all staff was, I
Speaker 3: know this will slow down the delivery process, but it
Speaker 3: is nonetheless a hard requirement for Elon to do anything
Speaker 3: that slows anyone down. That is anathema to him. Is
Speaker 3: it not DNA. All.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this is a great way to like sandbag
Speaker 1: the quarter because if they have a lousy quarter, they
Speaker 1: can be like, oh, well, we rolled out this new
Speaker 1: thing where you've got where the sales process is longer,
Speaker 1: and this slowed down some things towards the end.
Speaker 5: And it's not just about the quarter, because, as we've
Speaker 5: talked about on this podcast many times, the self driving
Speaker 5: story is crucial to Elon Musk's long term vision and
Speaker 5: maybe even more importantly, the extremely elevated value of Tesla's stock.
Speaker 5: Like this, if the story that Tesla cars drive themselves
Speaker 5: and they're that they're basically going to be robotaxis in
Speaker 5: twelve months, which Elon uns Musk has essentially been saying,
Speaker 5: you know for the last decade, almost if that were
Speaker 5: to break down, the stock would fall apart. And so
Speaker 5: so by demonstrating the value to people, it allows this
Speaker 5: story to be maintained.
Speaker 1: And the stock Tesla stock has gone up today as
Speaker 1: a result. It's like up what five six percent, I.
Speaker 3: Stock that has mostly been going down of late having
Speaker 3: a bit of a rebound today. Okay, very good. Max's
Speaker 3: topic number two on our discussion list, A court tossed
Speaker 3: the lawsuit that X had brought against the Center for
Speaker 3: Countering Digital Hate, tell us what happened here?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Center for Countering Digital Hate is an advocacy group
Speaker 5: that had published a series of reports that other news organizations,
Speaker 5: including Bloomberg, had written about and picked up on, essentially
Speaker 5: talking about white supremacy and racism on X. X sued
Speaker 5: the Center for Counting Digital Hate for, according to a lawsuit,
Speaker 5: like hacking the service. Basically, they were attempted. What it
Speaker 5: really felt like is they wanted to combat these reports,
Speaker 5: essentially silence this nonprofit group. They came up with sort
Speaker 5: of a novel way of doing so, which the judge rejected.
Speaker 5: The judge in the ruling said, it's really transparent, what's happening.
Speaker 5: This is about trying to silence a critic, That this
Speaker 5: is essentially an attempt to do a defamation lawsuit without
Speaker 5: filing one, and he tossed out a case.
Speaker 3: So then what's the takeaway here on all of this?
Speaker 5: I mean, this lawsuit always seemed like spretty thin. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't like it.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 5: It seemed, as the judge wrote in the ruling, essentially
Speaker 5: a way to threaten other critics. X has been trying
Speaker 5: very hard to rebut criticism from media outlets, from non
Speaker 5: profit groups, from anti hate groups that there's a lot
Speaker 5: of hate speech on the platform and the problem is
Speaker 5: the problem with this effort to shut down the criticism
Speaker 5: is that some of the calls coming from inside the house.
Speaker 5: Elon Musk himself has been essentially the vector for some
Speaker 5: of this. And when you look at what is slowing
Speaker 5: advertising down, it's not, you know, the Center for Countering
Speaker 5: Digital Hate, all respect to their research, it's what the
Speaker 5: boss is doing.
Speaker 3: Okay, Max. Topic number three and our rapid fire list
Speaker 3: a freedom and information request that was done by the
Speaker 3: intercept that led to a big piece on a very
Speaker 3: thorny topic explained for our listeners.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so this is a story that is probably less
Speaker 5: about Elon Musk and more about Twitter. Of course, Elon
Speaker 5: Musk now owns the company that was formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker 5: But essentially what this is about is two things. One
Speaker 5: is a long standing effort by Twitter to essentially stop
Speaker 5: the US government from requesting information about users without disclosing
Speaker 5: those requests. And at the same time, Twitter's data is
Speaker 5: being sold to these data brokers that are then turning
Speaker 5: around and selling them to governments. So there's kind of
Speaker 5: a whiff of hypocrisy here. I'll say this issue is
Speaker 5: not exclusive to Twitter, although it has been a big
Speaker 5: deal with Twitter for like a decade the company. When
Speaker 5: you think about what it does, it's this real time
Speaker 5: social network. You're seeing what's happening. That's valuable to advertisers.
Speaker 5: That's valuable maybe to pollsters and to journalists. It's also
Speaker 5: of course valuable to police and to you know, in
Speaker 5: certain countries authoritarian governments who might want to monitor protests.
Speaker 3: This data that.
Speaker 5: Is being mined is essentially public data, but it's being
Speaker 5: aggregated through this through what is known as Twitter's fire hose,
Speaker 5: essentially the data feed of all the tweets, and that
Speaker 5: is sold.
Speaker 2: To third parties.
Speaker 5: And it can, as news outlets have pointed out, and
Speaker 5: as this intercept story is saying, can be misused or
Speaker 5: can be used in ways that are somewhat uncomfortable if
Speaker 5: you're a pro free speech maximalist, as Elon Musk says
Speaker 5: he is. So now we have two stories essentially in
Speaker 5: which you know that call in a question in some
Speaker 5: sense how serious Musk is about his commitment to free speech.
Speaker 3: Right and so as you were saying, this case predates
Speaker 3: Musk and X. It began under the previous management when
Speaker 3: the company was Twitter. But Musk and his crew have
Speaker 3: continued to push it. Is that right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's understandable why they've done it because it's
Speaker 5: always been this somewhat uncomfortable situation where social media companies
Speaker 5: are asking users to trust them, but of course you're
Speaker 5: giving all this information to third party, and then that
Speaker 5: third party can be asked by the government.
Speaker 3: To turn it over for the government. Right.
Speaker 5: So, I don't think it's like hugely surprise causing that
Speaker 5: they continued the litigation. It does, I will say that
Speaker 5: to the point that the intercept makes, if you were
Speaker 5: really committed to free speech, and if you were a
Speaker 5: you know, somebody who's worth you know, pushing, you know,
Speaker 5: over one hundred and fifty billion dollars, you might question
Speaker 5: whether that data brokering business, the business of selling fire
Speaker 5: hose data to third parties, is worth pursuing.
Speaker 3: I guess it's a it's a little reminder to everyone
Speaker 3: out there that anything you post publicly can and potentially
Speaker 3: will be used against you. That was great, Dana Max,
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for happing on.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us, always a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Okay, So now, as promised, we're going to hand the
Speaker 3: microphone over to our colleagues and the Big Take podcast,
Speaker 3: who have a story about Starlink with huge geopolitical consequences.
Speaker 6: Hovering hundreds of miles above Earth is the largest single
Speaker 6: constellation of satellites. It's called Starlink.
Speaker 4: Falcon Starlink LDS go for launch, and.
Speaker 1: There is that call out that we are go for launch.
Speaker 1: Watch as Falcon nine takes our stack of Starlink satellites
Speaker 1: into orbit.
Speaker 6: Starlink is part of Elon Musk's company SpaceX. It's thousands
Speaker 6: of satellites provide Internet all over the world through portable
Speaker 6: kits about the size of a home computer monitor. The
Speaker 6: idea is to reach even the hardest to reach places,
Speaker 6: places where other providers can't operate or don't. On its website,
Speaker 6: Starlink proclaims that it's available almost everywhere on Earth, and
Speaker 6: that's a big selling point for the service. But there
Speaker 6: are some places starlink isn't supposed to be.
Speaker 4: If you look at Starlink's website, they have a very
Speaker 4: good map of global coverage. They duet to fully have
Speaker 4: certain countries blacked out, or they'll have dates when starlink
Speaker 4: services will become available, and some of the countries where
Speaker 4: it's more controversial, they will have no data available.
Speaker 6: That's Alan Crawford, a senior editor at Bloomberg. Some of
Speaker 6: those blacked out countries he's talking about represent places where
Speaker 6: Starlink's services don't have a licensing agreement, haven't been approved
Speaker 6: by their governments, or where the devices have been barred
Speaker 6: for sale because of US sanctions. But a Bloomberg investigation
Speaker 6: has found that those barriers haven't stopped Starling's kits from
Speaker 6: getting into the hands of folks on the ground through
Speaker 6: a burgeoning black market.
Speaker 4: What really struck me was the extent of this issue,
Speaker 4: that it's not just an isolated case here and there,
Speaker 4: it's pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 6: Today on the show, what starlink kits seeping into illegal
Speaker 6: markets could mean for the company and the geopolitical stakes
Speaker 6: of letting that market continue or trying to shut it down.
Speaker 1: Three two one Sarah than.
Speaker 3: I lived.
Speaker 6: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 5: Alan.
Speaker 6: Can you start by just telling us about starlink.
Speaker 4: Well, Starlink is a system of high speed Internet. It's
Speaker 4: very dependable, and it's based on satellites. The company is
Speaker 4: launched over five thousand satellites and it's using these to
Speaker 4: provide high speed Internet in parts of the world where
Speaker 4: connectivity is not very good.
Speaker 6: Essentially, SpaceX launched the first Starlink satellites in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6: In just a few years, it's become the largest satellite
Speaker 6: network in orbital space. It's also become a major source
Speaker 6: of revenue for SpaceX, along with government contracts and contracts
Speaker 6: with other companies to launch their satellites.
Speaker 4: The issue here for Starlink is that a lot of
Speaker 4: countries where they don't have good current are kind of
Speaker 4: keen to get access to this for obvious reasons, but
Speaker 4: at the same time, they're not willing to just freely
Speaker 4: give over control to the company, and this has led
Speaker 4: to an issue that it's come up in the reporting
Speaker 4: for the story that there are many countries around the
Speaker 4: world where there's no licensing agreement between the government and Starlink,
Speaker 4: and the trouble is that people are turning to the
Speaker 4: black market to obtain Starlink devices.
Speaker 6: Anyway, your reporting found that Starlink terminals have ended up
Speaker 6: in places that are under US sanctions, where starlink is
Speaker 6: barred from operating, or just where starlink does not have
Speaker 6: a licensing agreement. Can you give us a brief overview
Speaker 6: of what your team found is happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the starlink kits. These are the kind
Speaker 4: of dish and receiver. They're widely advertised over social media,
Speaker 4: usually like WhatsApp groups on Facebook groups. There's countries like
Speaker 4: Sudan in North Africa, which is subject to US sanctions.
Speaker 4: There's a brutal civil war underway there and there have
Speaker 4: been allegations of genocide. Millions of people have been displaced,
Speaker 4: and our reporting shows that the rebel forces which have
Speaker 4: been accused of committing these human rights abuses are using
Speaker 4: starlink because again, this is like a vast country with
Speaker 4: poor internet systems in parts, but the internet's been brought
Speaker 4: down and the two sides are, you know, accusing each
Speaker 4: other of having done that, and in the meantime they're
Speaker 4: using starlink.
Speaker 6: What can starlink itself do about these kits ending up
Speaker 6: in the wrong hands.
Speaker 4: Well, that is really the numb of the matter. We
Speaker 4: put a set of quite extensive questions to starlink and
Speaker 4: they have yet to respond. Nevertheless, people we spoke two
Speaker 4: who are experts in the industry, who work in the industry,
Speaker 4: they said that it is feasible to geolocate these systems
Speaker 4: as soon as they're activated. You can see where they
Speaker 4: are in theory, you flick the switch and you turn
Speaker 4: it off.
Speaker 6: Right, I mean, is that something they've done in the past.
Speaker 6: They have that capability, they have they used it.
Speaker 4: What we were told was that they have moved against
Speaker 4: illegal use in South Africa, and so the technicalities of
Speaker 4: how they're doing that I'm not clear, but they have
Speaker 4: attempted to clamp down on the illegal use there. But
Speaker 4: equally we were told that it hadn't been very successful,
Speaker 4: that they had only managed to shut down some ten
Speaker 4: percent of the terminals that were in use.
Speaker 6: So Dan is just one of the conflict torn countries
Speaker 6: where starlink terminals are being used and where they're banned.
Speaker 6: It's not just that militias want communications devices, it's also
Speaker 6: that ordinary people need access to the internet, and that
Speaker 6: dynamic is not so unique to Sudan. All over the world,
Speaker 6: in places under crisis where blackouts and connectivity issues are common,
Speaker 6: people are trying to get their hands on Starlink kits.
Speaker 6: You mentioned Sudan, and you've got a lot of detail
Speaker 6: about how Starlink is getting into Sudan and then how
Speaker 6: it's being used there. Can you walk us through that trajectory.
Speaker 4: In terms of Sudan, there are intermediaries who are obviously
Speaker 4: looking to make money and selling this in the black market,
Speaker 4: and they're bringing it in from Gulf countries that are
Speaker 4: apparently bringing it through Dubai and there are roots that
Speaker 4: they go through Darfur and South Sudan and bring them
Speaker 4: into the country that way. You know, when you buy
Speaker 4: a starlink system, you get the physical equipment and then
Speaker 4: like a mobile phone, you get a tariff a plan
Speaker 4: and you can pay extra for roaming. And they're using
Speaker 4: it in these territories where there's no agreement to do so.
Speaker 6: So they're buying a kit in a place where Starlink
Speaker 6: does have a licensing agreement, but they're buying this roaming
Speaker 6: plan so they can use it in places that are
Speaker 6: perhaps not under that agreement.
Speaker 4: Exactly. The reporter Sam and Marxy actually caught up with
Speaker 4: traders and spoke to them in person, and so in
Speaker 4: terms of social media, These are essentially like small traders
Speaker 4: that are online that are taking advantage of a loophole
Speaker 4: or black market to import these devices and sell them
Speaker 4: at a markup. In some cases we found they were
Speaker 4: offering advice on how to shelter these devices so that
Speaker 4: they're not detected by the authorities, not digitally but physically.
Speaker 4: You know, they were giving advicely, don't put it in
Speaker 4: an obvious part of your roof, you know, keep it
Speaker 4: to one side. And at certain times.
Speaker 6: This raises questions about local regulators and their responsibility to
Speaker 6: catch that these kids have been smuggled in and are
Speaker 6: being used.
Speaker 4: Governments and countries like South Africa where there is no
Speaker 4: licensing agreement with Starlink then they have issued the Telecoms
Speaker 4: Regulator has issued clear warnings against people using this because
Speaker 4: it's illegal.
Speaker 6: Let's talk about the implications of this, Especially in a
Speaker 6: conflict like the Russia Ukraine War. Starlink can have a
Speaker 6: massive impact on battlefield communications. What role has starlink played
Speaker 6: already in the Ukraine Russia War.
Speaker 4: At the onset of the war. Back in February twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two, Elon Musk offered the starlink system to the
Speaker 4: Ukrainian government military, which they were obviously more than happy
Speaker 4: to accept. There was subsequently a deal done between the
Speaker 4: Pentagon and the Ukrainians, and in terms of that were
Speaker 4: never made public. But nevertheless, we've seen plentiful evidence that
Speaker 4: Starlink terminals are used in Ukraine. But what is new
Speaker 4: is that as of February this year, the Ukrainians said
Speaker 4: that Russia is now starting to use it as well,
Speaker 4: which would be very much against US sanctions. And Musk
Speaker 4: said on X his social media platform that they were
Speaker 4: not knowingly selling any terminals to Russia. But nevertheless, there
Speaker 4: are posts on Twitter or video of Russian soldiers opening
Speaker 4: Starlink kits. It's impossible to verify these, but the point
Speaker 4: is that it's a widespread phenomenon.
Speaker 6: Finding the technology and shutting it down is one thing,
Speaker 6: but any attempt to systematically address the problem could mean
Speaker 6: dealing with the big man at the top. When we
Speaker 6: come back, how SpaceX's controversial CEO Elon Musk factors into
Speaker 6: any attempts to rein in Starlink's black market boom.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 6: Bloomberg Senior editor Alan Crawford has been telling me about
Speaker 6: how Starlink kits have been circulating in countries where the
Speaker 6: system doesn't have agreements in place, and efforts to rein
Speaker 6: that in haven't been wholly successful. But there's one person
Speaker 6: we haven't really talked about much yet who's a big factor,
Speaker 6: Elon Musk himself. He's the CEO and founder of SpaceX,
Speaker 6: the private company behind the Starlink satellite system. Here's what
Speaker 6: Alan had to say about Musk.
Speaker 4: Musk is known to weigh in on not just the
Speaker 4: war in Ukraine caused by Russia's invasion, but on various
Speaker 4: different aspects of US foreign policy, and that's what gets
Speaker 4: to some of the concerns that we heard voiced. There's
Speaker 4: the perception of a potential conflict of inter interest because
Speaker 4: Elon Musk is a private sector he is a supplier
Speaker 4: of services to the US government, not to play NASA,
Speaker 4: and he's taking these satellite payloads for the US government
Speaker 4: into space, and so there are obvious national security implications
Speaker 4: if a company like Starlink were to lose control of
Speaker 4: a satellite based system, or we're even just to exercise,
Speaker 4: you know, limited patrolling of its own system.
Speaker 6: To dig into these possible security risks and the broader
Speaker 6: question of Musk's role in all of this. I spoke
Speaker 6: with my colleague Dan Flatley, a national security reporter at
Speaker 6: Bloomberg who's covered the government contractor relationship between Musk and
Speaker 6: the US.
Speaker 2: Musk has a ton of contracts. I mean, there's an
Speaker 2: argument that could be made that Elon Musk would not
Speaker 2: be Elon Musk without the US government. I mean he is,
Speaker 2: you know, starting in the early two thousands with SpaceX,
Speaker 2: done lots of contracts with NASA, with other parts of
Speaker 2: the US government in terms of launching satellites and other
Speaker 2: types of things into space. He does business with the military.
Speaker 2: Starlink is being used in Ukraine, but he also has
Speaker 2: links to the Chinese government through Tesla, So he's sort
Speaker 2: of has his hands in a lot of different spaces.
Speaker 6: How could starlink terminal's bypassing sanctions, for example, cause national
Speaker 6: security concerns for the US if they're so entangled with
Speaker 6: Elon Musk's companies.
Speaker 2: So, you know, starlink is both a tool of communication
Speaker 2: and could be viewed as something that's an asset in
Speaker 2: terms of national security by the US, but it could
Speaker 2: also be a detriment to US national security depending on
Speaker 2: how it's used. And when you have someone who's as
Speaker 2: unpredictable and mercurial as Elon Musk is, but is also
Speaker 2: so technically proficient and offers a service that nobody else offers,
Speaker 2: you're sort of right on the bleeding edge of what
Speaker 2: could be used for good or what could be used
Speaker 2: for ill. And I think that what US national security
Speaker 2: officials that we talked to in Washington, d C. Feel
Speaker 2: like is that they don't have enough of a sense
Speaker 2: of where Elon Musk is on any given day on
Speaker 2: a lot of these issues, that he is both a
Speaker 2: trusted partner in somebody that US national security officials are
Speaker 2: somewhat wary of at the same time, but there's no
Speaker 2: alternative really to him for a lot of things, especially
Speaker 2: against SpaceX and stuff like starlink. You know, there's not
Speaker 2: a lot of other comparable sort of providers out there.
Speaker 6: What could it mean for Musk and his companies if
Speaker 6: they aren't able to address this issue, if it does
Speaker 6: become more of a priority of the US government to
Speaker 6: stop this and Starlink is enable to stop it, that's
Speaker 6: a really good question.
Speaker 2: I think you have to start with the question of
Speaker 2: does the US government want to stop this, and it's
Speaker 2: not totally clear whether they do, because there are some
Speaker 2: instances where the US government actually wants to encourage the
Speaker 2: use of starlink in some countries, whether it's Ukraine or
Speaker 2: Iran potentially, you know, there is a school of thought
Speaker 2: that more communication in some of these countries is better
Speaker 2: because it sort of opens it up to US markets
Speaker 2: and you know, sort of the US way of thinking
Speaker 2: about certain things. I think the question is are these
Speaker 2: terminals being used for military operations, are they being used
Speaker 2: to coordinate attacks? Are they being used in some way
Speaker 2: that would represent a significant threat to national security? And
Speaker 2: at that point does the government have a vested interest
Speaker 2: in getting involved. You know, anytime you have a technology
Speaker 2: like starlink that is so far advanced compared to what
Speaker 2: else is available out there, you're going to have people
Speaker 2: trying to get their hands on it. And that's one
Speaker 2: of the things that in some cases the US government
Speaker 2: wants to prevent and in other cases wants to encourage.
Speaker 2: Take Venezuela, for instance, where starlink terminals are showing up.
Speaker 2: Venezuela is under heavy US sanctions, but not every individual
Speaker 2: in Venezuela is sanctioned, so you know, if somebody is
Speaker 2: using a starlink terminal to access the Internet and they're
Speaker 2: not under sanctions and they're not under export control restrictions,
Speaker 2: then that's really a question for that country's government. If
Speaker 2: they are under US export controls, then that is a
Speaker 2: question for the US government.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a really complicated web of responsibility global interests,
Speaker 6: and ultimately it comes down to who has the control
Speaker 6: and who has the will to exert that control.
Speaker 2: It seems like, yeah, absolutely, And again, this is not
Speaker 2: a traditional company. This is not a traditional individual that
Speaker 2: you're dealing with. I think, by any metric, Elon Musk
Speaker 2: is not your typical, you know, entrepreneur. He's very outspoken,
Speaker 2: he's very unpredictable, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: the government, the US government in this case, is relying
Speaker 2: on him for a lot of different things and is
Speaker 2: not able to exert as much control over his activities
Speaker 2: as it might in a more traditional relationship.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to the entire Big Take team who worked
Speaker 3: on that episode, especially Sarah Holder, Adriana Tapia, Aaron Edwards,
Speaker 3: Naomi Ing, Veronica Rodriguez, Beth Ponzo, Nicole Beemster Boor, and
Speaker 3: our very own Naomi Shaven, and thank you to the
Speaker 3: elon In Team. As always, this episode was produced by
Speaker 3: Magnus Hendrickson, who is also our supervising producer. Naomi Shaven
Speaker 3: and Rayhan Harmanci are our senior editors. The idea for
Speaker 3: this very show also came from Rayhon Blake Maples handles engineering,
Speaker 3: and we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott. The
Speaker 3: Elon Inc. Theme is written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa
Speaker 3: and Alex Sugi Yurra. Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer,
Speaker 3: and Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. I'm
Speaker 3: David Papadopoulis. If you have a minute, rate and review
Speaker 3: our show, it'll help other listeners find us. See you
Speaker 3: next week.