D NASA has a problem. Oh well, one thing – a whole bunch. The most obvious: two astronauts who were actually only supposed to stay on the International Space Station for about a week are now spending a good six months there. The reason for this are technical problems with the Boeing space capsule originally intended for the return journey. Elon Musk, of all people, will be the savior in an emergency: thanks to the “Crew Dragon” capsule from his company SpaceX, NASA will be able to bring the two stranded people back next year.
A relatively young company (SpaceX) that does something better than a government institution (NASA) and its established partner (Boeing) – that should be right up the alley of multi-billionaire Elon Musk.
The richest man in the world, who took over the online platform Twitter two years ago and transformed it into the online juggernaut X, represents radical right-wing and libertarian positions. And he is being placed more and more at the center of US politics by the newly elected next US President Trump. Trump enthused: “A new star is born – Elon.” According to US media, Musk was most recently present and listened in on a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky. Trump has also already announced that Musk will have a very special position in his government: as a kind of advisor to trim the state and its institutions for efficiency.
Turning a state into a start-up – that should also suit Musk well. As a reminder: After joining X, then still Twitter, Musk first threw out a large part of the workforce. And insiders from the rest of his companies also report that Musk is primarily concerned with two things: maintaining an immense workload for everyone who works there. And at the same time, eliminate everything that doesn’t meet his ideas of efficiency. In the end, there is likely to be as little left of a state that has been restructured from this perspective as of a person who has overdone it with the weight-loss injection Ozempic, which is popular in the USA – and who after a few months only exists as a sunken shadow of his former self.
Musk has geopolitical interests
He also pursues his own agendas with the various companies in which Musk is involved – the space company SpaceX, the X/Twitter platform, the neurotechnology company Neuralink and the electric car manufacturer Tesla. Example Tesla. One of the hurdles for its project to bring vehicles onto the streets as autonomous taxis is the approval processes. They currently lie with the US states. If Musk were to raise the approval process to a national level with reference to greater efficiency and get the okay for his Teslas, sales of the vehicles could increase rapidly. Not entirely irrelevant for Musk, whose fortune is largely based on Tesla shares, which would then increase significantly in value. No wonder that Tesla shares rose significantly immediately after Trump’s election, making Musk, the richest person in the world, even richer.
At the same time, Musk also has geopolitical interests with Tesla: he is dependent on China for the batteries for electric cars. Although the country does not have all the raw materials needed for production, China is doing a lot to control the resources found in other countries. Good relations with China are important for Tesla – Trump, on the other hand, relies on confrontation.
Musk doesn’t take the law very seriously
Example SpaceX. The company not only builds space capsules and rockets, but also operates the Starlink satellite network. This is increasingly becoming Musk’s geopolitical football. The satellites can also bring Internet to war and crisis areas where the infrastructure is devastated. In Ukraine, Starlink became a central element of the communications infrastructure soon after the Russian attack began; Musk himself had described it as the backbone of communications. Would Musk be in a trade with Trump, perhaps in exchange for easier approval processes for Tesla, in exchange for a good position in the Ministry of Defense for one or another deserving SpaceX employee, in exchange for tax breaks or in exchange for further contracts for products from Musk’s universe Example: SpaceX technology for NASA, restricting or switching off Starlink in Ukraine – the consequences for the country would be serious.
No wonder that immediately after Trump’s election, Tesla shares rose significantly and made Musk even richer
At the same time, Musk doesn’t always take the law very seriously. This is demonstrated by various cases in which Musk or his companies were accused of violating labor law, stock exchange and environmental regulations, among other things. Most recently, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed fines on SpaceX totaling around $633,000 in September. The company is said to have circumvented security measures at launch.
It is not the first fine imposed on the company by the FAA, and the FAA is not the only agency with which SpaceX is in conflict: In Texas, authorities are investigating cases of environmental pollution by the company. A thinned-out administration that can no longer follow up on relevant leads would be entirely in Musk’s interest. Because all of these are actually just hurdles on the way to his goal – which is extremely unrealistic given the current scientific and technical standards – to colonize Mars.
“Move fast and break things.” This ambiguous saying from the tech business to act quickly and fundamentally change things, to break things up – it sounds like the headline for Musk’s actions for Trump’s upcoming presidency.
