I think Elon has more to lose than the folks holding the purse strings for NASA. Defense contracts might make some pause for a little while but congress has a long history of supporting more traditional defense contractors and they could spend some money on lobbying (or dinner at Mar a Lago).
credit_guy•9h ago
Yeah... no. If the Golden Dome hopes to have a chance to get built (on budget), SpaceX needs to get involved.
tocs3•9h ago
SpaceX did OK with the Dragon capsule some years ago. I will happily give them credit budget wise and performance (and timing for something like that is hard). The Golden Dome project is a different animal all together. This is a cynical take, but Golden Dome is another giant DoD project. It will not keep to any sort of budget and the timeline is fantasy. Something might get produced but congress will have no trouble awarding launch contracts to who ever spends the most on lobbying.
watwut•15h ago
He wants them money. The contracts for SpaceX is his primary gain from his political engagement. He needs those contracts and got them.
If he looses them, it will be as a revenge from Trump rather then voluntary something.
mft_•13h ago
To offer a little factual background:
* The fact that SpaceX is currently the only US company with an available and reliable capacity to fly astronauts to/from the ISS is the main reason for many of the contracts, and they had this before and irrespective of Musk's political engagement.
* For other launch activities unrelated to the ISS, SpaceX offers the most cost-effective service, so again it's not unreasonable that they would win business irrespective.
* Most of SpaceX's active contracts with NASA predate Trump's second term.
dkjaudyeqooe•12h ago
Musk tried to have a close associate installed as the head of NASA. Even if those facts are true there are many, many benefits Musk stood to get.
So although the GP comment is a bit silly it's still in the ballpark.
tayo42•9h ago
How was the US getting to the iss before SpaceX. Seems to concerning to have all of the capabilities tied up with one irrational guy and his toy company
KerrAvon•8h ago
IIRC paying the Russians.
dboreham•8h ago
Russian rockets.
whatever1•13h ago
What if the gov takes over SpaceX overnight?
to11mtm•12h ago
You'd have bigger questions coming up based on the general 'how did it get to this' as well as any other companies as well as the populace being very concerned about such behavior.
forgetfreeman•12h ago
I think you might be surprised to find out how much of the populace would literally applaud such behavior.
lantry•11h ago
agreed. the right will believe whatever trump tells them, and the left would be happy to see Elon knocked down a peg.
BryanLegend•11h ago
We ain't stupid
kasperni•4h ago
Until they saw the stock market...
indy•11h ago
Then any progress would also stop overnight.
nickthegreek•10h ago
they should probably toss in starlink as well.
piva00•4h ago
The USA would get SpaceX but also have to deal with businesses getting spooked that the government can now nationalise private assets on a whim.
When that happened in Iran 1953 the CIA fostered a coup; Cuba is under embargo since the 60s triggered by Fidel nationalising sugar mills; Chile's coup in the 70s with CIA support was triggered by nationalisation of the copper mines; invasion of Panama in the 80s was from tensions with Noriega wanting to take over the canal's assets.
Venezuela's sanctions were because Chávez nationalised oil under PDVSA. The rift with Bolivia's Evo Morales was from gas nationalisation.
So if the USA just takes over someone's private company it will be absurdly hypocritical, and shatter even more the USA's international reputation, the added risk to businesses in the USA after this precedent opens will probably also be of concern.
RIMR•13h ago
SpaceX would go under, that's basically all of their income...
bpodgursky•12h ago
NASA is about $1B of SpaceX's ~$15B revenue.
SpaceX does a LOT of commercial launch. And Starlink is growing fast.
JumpCrisscross•11h ago
I’m assuming if Trump is cancelling SpaceX’s NASA contracts he’s also yanking launch and possibly even radio authorisation.
In a strange way, the middle path is targeting Elon personally. Not his companies.
bpodgursky•10h ago
I mean if Trump really wants to lose more court cases he's welcome to try, but I doubt it would get that far.
The DoD knows if SpaceX can't launch, they straight up will never get their assets into orbit. The ULA backlog is like a decade.
KerrAvon•8h ago
He’s winning the important ones. The Supreme Court keeps giving him the green light to wipe his ass with the constitution.
smegger001•9h ago
his companies board memebers need to grow a backbone and at the very least demand he go to rehab if not "promote him to Emeritus CEO" and remove his actual control give him just another seat on the board then threaten to revoke his voting rights if he does shut up.
bpodgursky•9h ago
Tesla can do this but he has voting control at SpaceX
dev1ycan•11h ago
I'll be honest, SpaceX is his as long as he respects the country he is at, and what he was allowed to do, he "joked" about decommisioning the dragon but I don't think a single person in government will allow him to sabotage the ISS like that. Actual room for criminal investigation and possibly expropiation. If he was in Canada or South Africa he wouldn't have access to the technical knowledge or talent that he has in the US, due to law, and said law exists to protect critical industries in America, it goes both ways, you are also not allowed as an individual to sabotage the nation.
JumpCrisscross•11h ago
> criminal investigation and possibly expropiation
Criminal investigation into lying on clearance forms about drug use effectively sidelines him SpaceX’s chain of command without stealing his or anyone else’s shareholdings.
That said, it would be an authoritarian shot across the bow for Silicon Valley from this White House.
georgemcbay•11h ago
Pretty sure his relatively quick walk back on that "joke" was due to the realization that if it was left open as a credible threat it is very likely the government would have just seized control of SpaceX immediately.
There's not really any need to charge him with anything to do that when he is making active threats to weaken national security, though its possible they might have separately gone after him.
And if the government did take that action they would have had incredibly high popular support for doing so among virtually everyone on both sides.
JumpCrisscross•11h ago
> if they did, they would have had incredibly high popular support for doing so among virtually everyone on both sides
What? Where? If you mean expropriation, no, that has never been popular here, it’s part of why we have a massive economy.
georgemcbay•11h ago
> What? Where? If you mean expropriation, no, that has never been popular here, it’s part of why we have a massive economy.
Right here where I live, in the United States.
I never suggested expropriation in general would be widely supported, but when you have the richest man in the world (who has spent the last year making enemies of virtually everyone other than a small cadre of twitter shitposters) manically making decisions while reportedly on a downward spiral drug bender and he suggests taking action that would lead to endangering the lives of astronauts and an overall weakening of America's national security, yeah the government would have had massive popular support for seizing SpaceX.
If you don't think so I think you might be living in a libertarian bubble.
hn_throwaway_99•11h ago
I think you need to wake up and smell the coffee - the US is not the same place it was a decade ago.
And this isn't just a random expropriation. While I may have to cry myself to sleep at the thought of our once great nation having devolved into a bitchy slap fest by a couple of narcissistic man babies, the fact is that SpaceX probably wouldn't exist today without the US government, so with Musk having a temper tantrum and saying "I'm taking my toys and going home", the US government would have at least somewhat valid national security reasons to take over SpaceX.
Couple that with the fact that Musk is hated, extremely, by many folks out both sides of the political aisle, means that the rule of law concerns about a SpaceX expropriation would largely be ignored.
sircastor•8h ago
Yes, but every large company in the US would view the nationalization of SpaceX as “shots fired” and investors would likely panic worrying that their stock portfolios would be at arbitrary whims of a tiff between the administration and the CEO.
Your rationalization of it is not unreasonable, but the market would panic in a bad way if the government showed it was willing to take extremes.
georgemcbay•8h ago
> Yes, but every large company in the US would view the nationalization of SpaceX as “shots fired” and investors would likely panic worrying that their stock portfolios would be at arbitrary whims of a tiff between the administration and the CEO.
I don't agree with this.
Like if it were merely a "tiff" between the administration and a CEO, then yes that would be destabilizing, but there is important context here that you are entirely glossing over.
Elon threatened to take his ball and go home in a literally life threatening (to astronauts) way after making SpaceX an essential aspect of the space program. If he didn't walk back that threat I think it would have been very easy for large companies to see the outcome as entirely Elon's fault and maybe just double-check in on their own CEOs to make sure they make sane decisions.
I'm personally convinced Elon realizing the likelihood of this outcome (probably because someone else reminded him of it) is exactly why he started walking the threat back.
And as a side effect of this mess, Elon also unintentionally gave everyone a pretty good reason to reconsider if its a great idea to allow any privatized entity to become "too big to fail" (or, more exactly, too big to easily replace if their CEO goes crazy) within any important government function.
lostlogin•8h ago
> you are also not allowed as an individual to sabotage the nation.
I’m not sure of this.
KerrAvon•8h ago
I wouldn’t have thought a south african script kiddie would be allowed to do it, but as long as it had the Oompa-Loompa president’s OK, apparently everyone is good with it.
If they maintain their development speed I don’t have much hope. They got started before SpaceX and still haven’t reached orbit.
rockemsockem•12h ago
I generally agree with this sentiment, but they did reach orbit with their sole launch of New Glenn! An admirable thing, even if it took like a quarter of a century.....
fooblaster•12h ago
They reached orbit with new glenn in January. This just isn't true.
1970-01-01•18h ago
tocs3•17h ago
credit_guy•9h ago
tocs3•9h ago
watwut•15h ago
If he looses them, it will be as a revenge from Trump rather then voluntary something.
mft_•13h ago
* The fact that SpaceX is currently the only US company with an available and reliable capacity to fly astronauts to/from the ISS is the main reason for many of the contracts, and they had this before and irrespective of Musk's political engagement.
* For other launch activities unrelated to the ISS, SpaceX offers the most cost-effective service, so again it's not unreasonable that they would win business irrespective.
* Most of SpaceX's active contracts with NASA predate Trump's second term.
dkjaudyeqooe•12h ago
So although the GP comment is a bit silly it's still in the ballpark.
tayo42•9h ago
KerrAvon•8h ago
dboreham•8h ago
whatever1•13h ago
to11mtm•12h ago
forgetfreeman•12h ago
lantry•11h ago
BryanLegend•11h ago
kasperni•4h ago
indy•11h ago
nickthegreek•10h ago
piva00•4h ago
When that happened in Iran 1953 the CIA fostered a coup; Cuba is under embargo since the 60s triggered by Fidel nationalising sugar mills; Chile's coup in the 70s with CIA support was triggered by nationalisation of the copper mines; invasion of Panama in the 80s was from tensions with Noriega wanting to take over the canal's assets.
Venezuela's sanctions were because Chávez nationalised oil under PDVSA. The rift with Bolivia's Evo Morales was from gas nationalisation.
So if the USA just takes over someone's private company it will be absurdly hypocritical, and shatter even more the USA's international reputation, the added risk to businesses in the USA after this precedent opens will probably also be of concern.
RIMR•13h ago
bpodgursky•12h ago
SpaceX does a LOT of commercial launch. And Starlink is growing fast.
JumpCrisscross•11h ago
In a strange way, the middle path is targeting Elon personally. Not his companies.
bpodgursky•10h ago
The DoD knows if SpaceX can't launch, they straight up will never get their assets into orbit. The ULA backlog is like a decade.
KerrAvon•8h ago
smegger001•9h ago
bpodgursky•9h ago
dev1ycan•11h ago
JumpCrisscross•11h ago
Criminal investigation into lying on clearance forms about drug use effectively sidelines him SpaceX’s chain of command without stealing his or anyone else’s shareholdings.
That said, it would be an authoritarian shot across the bow for Silicon Valley from this White House.
georgemcbay•11h ago
There's not really any need to charge him with anything to do that when he is making active threats to weaken national security, though its possible they might have separately gone after him.
And if the government did take that action they would have had incredibly high popular support for doing so among virtually everyone on both sides.
JumpCrisscross•11h ago
What? Where? If you mean expropriation, no, that has never been popular here, it’s part of why we have a massive economy.
georgemcbay•11h ago
Right here where I live, in the United States.
I never suggested expropriation in general would be widely supported, but when you have the richest man in the world (who has spent the last year making enemies of virtually everyone other than a small cadre of twitter shitposters) manically making decisions while reportedly on a downward spiral drug bender and he suggests taking action that would lead to endangering the lives of astronauts and an overall weakening of America's national security, yeah the government would have had massive popular support for seizing SpaceX.
If you don't think so I think you might be living in a libertarian bubble.
hn_throwaway_99•11h ago
And this isn't just a random expropriation. While I may have to cry myself to sleep at the thought of our once great nation having devolved into a bitchy slap fest by a couple of narcissistic man babies, the fact is that SpaceX probably wouldn't exist today without the US government, so with Musk having a temper tantrum and saying "I'm taking my toys and going home", the US government would have at least somewhat valid national security reasons to take over SpaceX.
Couple that with the fact that Musk is hated, extremely, by many folks out both sides of the political aisle, means that the rule of law concerns about a SpaceX expropriation would largely be ignored.
sircastor•8h ago
Your rationalization of it is not unreasonable, but the market would panic in a bad way if the government showed it was willing to take extremes.
georgemcbay•8h ago
I don't agree with this.
Like if it were merely a "tiff" between the administration and a CEO, then yes that would be destabilizing, but there is important context here that you are entirely glossing over.
Elon threatened to take his ball and go home in a literally life threatening (to astronauts) way after making SpaceX an essential aspect of the space program. If he didn't walk back that threat I think it would have been very easy for large companies to see the outcome as entirely Elon's fault and maybe just double-check in on their own CEOs to make sure they make sane decisions.
I'm personally convinced Elon realizing the likelihood of this outcome (probably because someone else reminded him of it) is exactly why he started walking the threat back.
And as a side effect of this mess, Elon also unintentionally gave everyone a pretty good reason to reconsider if its a great idea to allow any privatized entity to become "too big to fail" (or, more exactly, too big to easily replace if their CEO goes crazy) within any important government function.
lostlogin•8h ago
I’m not sure of this.
KerrAvon•8h ago