An Unhealthy Addiction

 

Anti-Semite and crashing car and exploding rocket mogul Elon Musk has wormed his way into critical sectors of our national security, from satellites to heavy lift rockets. It's way past time to wean ourselves away from this unstable, narcissistic bigot. A lengthy excerpt from the New York Times:

"The White House denounced Elon Musk on Friday for “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate,” for his endorsement of what an administration spokesman called a “hideous lie” about Jews.

All of which might make one think the Biden administration was going to try to pull back from doing business with the world’s richest person. Except that, in recent weeks, the U.S. government has become more dependent on him than ever, agreeing to as much as $1.2 billion worth of SpaceX launches next year to put crucial Pentagon assets, including spy and command-and-control satellites, into space.

And in September, the Pentagon agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars for “Starshield,” a new, secure communications system his company has set up for the nation’s defense and intelligence systems, relying on the same clusters of Starlink satellites that have proved vital to Ukraine’s military during the war with Russia.

In private, administration officials say the Starlink satellites are critical to deterring China because they are far more resistant to Chinese efforts to disable them than the Pentagon’s own communications satellites.

These are only the latest examples of why the federal government has no viable way to break up with Mr. Musk, at least as long as the United States decides it is going to continue space exploration and deter its biggest superpower rivals. It may denounce him and declare that all Americans should reject his views. But it needs him, or at least his rockets and his satellites, more than ever.

And the White House and Pentagon both know that.

Rarely has the U.S. government so depended on the technology provided by a single, if petulant, technologist with views that it has so publicly declared repugnant. And yet, by the account of administration officials, they have no choice — and will not for a while. Because there are, right now, few viable alternatives." (our emphasis)

How the Federal Government let itself get into a situation where it's dealing with one single supply source for those technologies and capabilities is shocking and almost malfeasance. The unstable Musk is perfectly capable of sabotaging those efforts whenever he feels aggrieved by the Government. His attempt to curry favor with Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin by temporarily denying Ukraine access to his Starlink system last year is a warning sign. This latter day billionaire Bond villain is a threat to our national security due to his virtual monopoly on satellite communications and space technologies. It's a monopoly that the U.S. can ill afford to allow.