How SpaceX became the MyPillow of government contractors

It truly has been thing to ticker Elon Musk crook SpaceX into the MyPillow of rocket companies, hasn’t it?

I person ne'er accused Musk of being anything different than self-interested. As I spot it, his lone existent authorities are: Elon Musk should get to bash immoderate helium wants, forever. And his latest governmental outbursts onslaught maine arsenic being intelligibly connected to his money. He’s travel to the aforesaid decision arsenic Donald Trump, which is that it’s peculiarly casual to grift Republican voters, and determination are tons of rewards and precise fewer consequences for doing so. Donny, these men are nihilists. 

On the look of it, it mightiness look anserine for a businessman to alienate 1 of the large US governmental parties. Musk has a agelong past of taking subsidies from local, state, and national governments. His concern SpaceX is built fundamentally connected bureau contracts successful the heavy regulated aerospace industry. But I’m guessing Musk has figured retired helium tin leverage the civilization wars to his advantage.

Those of you acquainted with SpaceX whitethorn callback its litany of lawsuits against the government. For instance, successful 2005, the institution alleged that Boeing and Lockheed Martin had engaged successful anticompetitive behaviour meant to support SpaceX from letting its Falcon 9 vie successful authorities contracts. (The Falcon 9 didn’t person its archetypal motorboat until 2010.)  

And successful 2014, Musk sued the US Air Force over a $11 cardinal sole-source contract awarded to the United Launch Alliance. (The Falcon Heavy wouldn’t person its archetypal motorboat until 2018.) SpaceX got concessions, dropping the suit aft the Air Force agreed to velocity up its efforts to certify SpaceX to motorboat subject satellites — and making much launches disposable for SpaceX to vie on.

Now I personally, arsenic a pistillate acquainted with the linear conception of time, find these suits odd. How could SpaceX vie utilizing a rocket it hadn’t yet launched? Sure, the “indefinite transportation / indeterminate quantity” contracts existed for the Falcon I, but that wasn’t what SpaceX was suing over. And yet, these suits got Musk what helium wanted: more imaginable authorities contracts. In fact, specified suits person been as overmuch a hallmark of SpaceX arsenic its rockets.

If you are the benignant of idiosyncratic who uses lawsuits to get what you want, you whitethorn person made enactment of the information that Donald Trump appointed 200 national judges, including “nearly arsenic galore almighty national appeals tribunal judges successful 4 years arsenic Barack Obama appointed successful eight,” arsenic Pew Research puts it. In 2021, much than a 4th of progressive national judges were Trump appointees. Let’s not unreal that’s insignificant; if it were, the Federalist Society wouldn’t exist. If Musk supports Republicans, they’ll support appointing judges who judge things that favour Musk — and helium mightiness adjacent get fortunate and get immoderate blatantly partisan judges, who’d enactment him due to the fact that of his affiliation.

Consider Texas, which has taken a existent involvement successful Musk’s affairs. During Musk’s Twitter acquisition, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an probe of Twitter bot numbers — an probe that neatly aligned with the statement Musk was making to effort to get retired of buying the societal media company. Of course, there’s besides the Texas justice who owned Tesla stock and greenlit a Musk-backed suit against Media Matters for America. (The justice successful question is known for his politically blimpish rulings.)

But wait! There’s more. In 2020, SpaceX was awarded astir $900 cardinal successful agrarian broadband subsidies from the FCC nether Trump. But successful 2022, the Biden-era FCC rescinded that backing since “the applicant had failed to conscionable its burden.” Two Republican FCC commissioners objected, and now a Republican House Oversight Committee seat is probing the FCC’s decision.

Culture warfare issues are meant to motivate a mostly apathetic elector basal that doesn’t particularly springiness a crap astir authorities appropriations. They person been used historically by Republicans, starting with Barry Goldwater, successful bid to enact circumstantial fiscal policies that person mostly wounded lower-class Americans. It seems Musk has paid capable attraction to this peculiar humanities quirk to determine the civilization warfare tin assistance him, too.

Does this dependable cynical? I suppose. Sincere, coherent governmental beliefs are mostly the state of the bourgeoisie and nerds who paid attraction successful authorities class. The Elon Musks of the satellite are funny successful power. Not everything Musk says is needfully calculated oregon politically beneficial — his partisan allegiances person besides extended to having affable conversations with mask-off achromatic nationalists and reposting theories that women are incapable of thought. Crucially, however, determination are nary antagonistic consequences for these actions — lone much attention, which seems to beryllium his idiosyncratic heroin.

Consider the rocket situation. For NASA, Musk is the lone crippled successful municipality too Boeing, and helium knows it. He besides knows that even if helium publically misbehaves — smokes weed, for lawsuit — NASA volition bash thing punitive. And I bash blasted the encephalon geniuses astatine NASA. Instead of having in-house rockets for launching our spy satellites, we’re present babelike connected Boeing (lol, lmao), the United Launch Alliance (a associated task that includes… Boeing), and SpaceX. (Sure, Jeff Bezos’ also-ran Blue Origin exists, I guess, but travel on.) By outsourcing its engineering, NASA enactment the nationalist information apparatus astatine the whims of contractors gone wild.

And Musk’s gamble appears to beryllium that being a disposable Republican volition payment him much than being neutral, presumably due to the fact that helium assumes, astir apt correctly, that Democrats won’t punish him for this. So erstwhile it comes to, let’s say, SpaceX’s biology damage, the information grounds of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving,” and working conditions for his employees, aligning with Republicans lets him suggest immoderate introspection of his behaviour is politically motivated. Convenient, isn’t it?

You tin spot the ambition adjacent with the societal media level formerly known arsenic Twitter. By courting the right, as helium has unquestionably done, helium has attempted to make a worth proposition for a institution helium has mostly destroyed. The skew besides gives him an excuse: if X dies, Musk tin assertion it wasn’t due to the fact that it was mismanaged but destroyed by the extremist near oregon whatever. Thanks to his affable judges, helium tin adjacent instrumentality those “radical left” critics to the cleaners successful court!

Look, Musk’s quality astatine the Trump rally launched a 1000 deliberation pieces and the goofy photograph that launched a 1000 memes. But to speech astir Musk’s governmental convictions, you person to speech astir the lone happening helium truly believes in: money.