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    Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with the software maker Palantir and the drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.In his 27 January executive order, Trump cited a missile attack as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States”.All three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have been major political supporters of Trump. Musk has donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, and now serves as a special adviser to the president working to cut government spending through his so-called “department of government efficiency”.Despite the Pentagon’s positive signals to the SpaceX group, some sources stressed the decision process for Trump’s Golden Dome was in its early stages. Its ultimate structure and who is selected to work on it could change dramatically in the coming months.The three companies met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement, sources said.A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down, three of the sources said. The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites, these sources said.One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.”SpaceX and Musk have declined to comment on whether Musk is involved in any of the discussions or negotiations involving federal contracts with his businesses.
    The Pentagon did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters, only saying it will deliver “options to the president for his decision in line with the executive order and in alignment with White House guidance and timelines”.The White House, SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril also did not respond to questions.In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright.The subscription model, which has not been previously reported, could skirt some Pentagon procurement protocols allowing the system to be rolled out faster, the two sources said. While the approach would not violate any rules, the government may then be locked into a subscription and lose control over its ongoing development and pricing, they added.Some Pentagon officials have expressed concerns internally about relying on the subscription-based model for any part of the Golden Dome, two sources told Reuters. Such an arrangement would be unusual for such a large and critical defense program.The US space force general Michael Guetlein has been in talks on whether SpaceX should be the owner and operator of its part of the system, the two sources said. Other options include having the US own and operate the system, or having the US own it while contractors handle operations. Guetlein did not respond to a request for comment.The retired air force general Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a top SpaceX adviser to Musk, has been involved in the company’s recent discussions with senior defense and intelligence leaders, the two sources said. O’Shaughnessy did not respond to requests for comment.Should the group led by SpaceX win a Golden Dome contract, it would be the biggest win for Silicon Valley in the lucrative defense contracting industry and a blow to the traditional contractors.However, those long-standing contractors, such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing and RTX are expected to be big players in the process as well, people familiar with the companies said. Lockheed Martin put up a webpage as a part of its marketing efforts.SpaceX is pitching for the part of the Golden Dome initiative called the “custody layer”, a constellation of satellites that would detect missiles, track their trajectory, and determine if they are heading toward the US, according to two sources familiar with SpaceX’s goals.SpaceX has estimated the preliminary engineering and design work for the custody layer of satellites would cost between $6bn and $10bn, two of the sources said. In the last five years, SpaceX has launched hundreds of operational spy satellites and more recently several prototypes, which could be retrofitted to be used for the project, the sources said.Reuters reviewed an internal Pentagon memo from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, issued shortly before a 28 February deadline to senior Pentagon leadership asking them for initial Golden Dome proposals and calling for the “acceleration of the deployment” of constellations of satellites.The time frame could give SpaceX an advantage because of its fleet of rockets, including the Falcon 9, and existing satellites that could be repurposed for the missile defense shield, the people familiar with the plan said. More

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    Under Trump and Musk, billionaires wield unprecedented influence over US national security

    Just days before Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, launched its New Glenn rocket, named for John Glenn, the Mercury astronaut who was the first American to orbit the Earth. Around 2am on 16 January, the 30-story rocket powered by seven engines blasted off into the Florida night from Cape Canaveral’s historic launch complex 36, which first served as a Nasa launch site in 1962.The flight’s end was marred by a failure to bring the booster rocket back for further use, but the successful launch and orbit still marked a watershed moment for Blue Origin in its bid to compete with SpaceX, the company owned by Elon Musk, for dominance over American spy satellite operations. During the Trump administration, it is likely that both companies will play significant roles in placing spy satellites into Earth orbit, which could mean that the United States intelligence community will be beholden to both Bezos and Musk to handle the single most complex and expensive endeavor in modern espionage.In fact, Musk and Bezos are in a position during the Trump administration to personally exert significant influence over the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the rest of the US national security apparatus. The two pro-Trump billionaires have already been awarded massive contracts with the US intelligence community, including some that predate Trump’s first term in office.The emergence of Musk, Bezos and a handful of other pro-Trump billionaires as key players in US intelligence marks a radical change in US spy operations, which have traditionally been controlled by career government officials working closely with a few longstanding defense and intelligence contractors, giant corporations such as Lockheed Martin, RTX and Northrop Grumman that are adept at lobbying both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. But with Musk, Bezos and other pro-Trump Silicon Valley figures gaining an edge through their personal ties to Trump, civil servants in the intelligence community may be reluctant to deny them ever-larger contracts, especially since Trump has already fired several inspectors general who investigated Musk’s businesses in other areas of the government.Anticipating big rewards, Musk is reportedly joining forces with other pro-Trump billionaires to try to carve up the defense and intelligence business. SpaceX is working with Palantir, a hi-tech data analytics intelligence contractor co-founded by Peter Thiel, one of the most prominent rightwing figures in Silicon Valley; Anduril, a new defense contractor founded by 32-year-old pro-Trump tech bro Palmer Luckey; and several other Silicon Valley firms to form a consortium geared towards loosening the grip of the defense industry’s traditional players.Tech leaders eager to get into intelligence contracting have long complained that the business has become so consolidated around a few big players that it is nearly impossible for outsiders to compete, leading to a lack of innovation. “Consolidation bred conformity,” argued Shyam Sankar, the chief technology officer of Palantir, in a widely read public memo, The Defense Reformation.Swapping one oligarchy for anotherIt is hard to separate Silicon Valley’s calls for breaking up the oligarchy now controlling the defense and intelligence business from the eagerness of pro-Trump tech bros to grab as much power and cash as possible while creating a new oligarchy of their own.“The idea of overturning the contracting process did intrigue me, but now, under Trump, I think it is just about greed,” observed Greg Treverton, a former director of the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community’s top analytical arm. “Now, with Trump, it is mostly about money and connections.”In the eyes of their critics, tech entrepreneurs offer a simplistic, black-and-white picture of the defense and intelligence business in which Silicon Valley conveniently has all the answers.“Beware the instant expert,” said Peter Singer, a defense analyst at the New America Foundation. “It’s like they are saying ‘I watched a YouTube video and now I know everything.’ They have this narrative that only Silicon Valley can drive innovation.”Elon Musk, satellite spymasterAs he eagerly slashes and burns through the ranks of federal employees with his Doge apparatus, Musk has emerged as the most powerful and polarizing figure in the Trump administration. But what is less well known is that Musk has also gained an influential role in the US intelligence community despite never having served inside the spy world.Musk’s SpaceX has already become one of the main rocket contractors launching American spy satellites and is seeking to overcome the edge held by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the traditional giant in the niche. In addition, Starlink, Musk’s commercial satellite communication network, is playing a critical role in US foreign policy, providing internet service in remote regions of the world including in Ukraine, where it operates a communications network for the Ukrainian army. Starlink’s role in the Ukraine war has placed Musk squarely in the middle of the dispute between Trump and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Meanwhile, questions about whether Musk is assuming a dual role as both a player in Trump’s national security policymaking and a major contractor grew after he received a private briefing at the Pentagon on 21 March and visited the CIA headquarters 10 days later.SpaceX has a head start over Blue Origin in the spy satellite business, and Musk has a big lead over Bezos in Trump world. But Blue Origin and Bezos are working hard to catch up in both.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBezos seeks to add to classified cloud contractDuring his first term, Trump repeatedly attacked Bezos over negative stories that were published in the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, and as revenge threatened Amazon’s business dealings with the US Postal Service. Since the 2024 election, though, Bezos has turned himself into a Trump booster, lavishing praise and large donations on the president while also working to transform the Washington Post’s opinion page, which he says should focus on “personal liberties and free markets”.Bezos’s move into an alliance with Trump has put him in a position to expand his reach into the spy satellite business while also protecting the large stake he already holds in other aspects of intelligence. The billionaire, the second-richest person in the world after Musk, has been involved in the spy world for more than a decade through Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing subsidiary of Amazon, which Bezos founded and where he remains executive chair. Amazon Web Services has managed the CIA’s classified cloud since it won a $600m contract with the spy agency in 2013, and dramatically expanded its intelligence role when it was awarded a $10bn contract to manage the NSA’s classified cloud in 2022 through a program code-named “Wild and Stormy”.Palmer Luckey and Silicon Valley’s clique of young defense contractorsPlenty of other Silicon Valley billionaires are also seeking to crowd into Washington alongside Musk and Bezos. Palantir’s Thiel is a mentor of the vice-president, JD Vance, and his firm has a longstanding relationship with the intelligence community that is likely to expand under Trump. The CIA’s investment firm, In-Q-Tel, was one of the early backers of Palantir after its 2003 founding, and the company has had a major role in the development of data integration and data analytics systems for the intelligence community. Palantir is now seeking a broader role in developing AI for both the Pentagon and the intelligence community.Luckey, who made his name as a virtual reality entrepreneur by founding Oculus, has become a prominent new face at the intersection of Trump world and national security. Luckey’s Anduril now has a contract with the US army to develop battlefield virtual reality headsets, which would allow data to be sent directly to soldiers while also allowing them to control unmanned drones and other weapons. In addition, Anduril won a $642m contract with the Marine Corps to develop countermeasures against small drones in March. Luckey first supported Trump in 2016, when that was an unpopular position in Silicon Valley, but now that Trump is back, he has said that he’s on an “I told you so tour”, trumpeting his America-first political views.Luckey said in a recent interview: “I don’t think the United States needs to be the world police. It needs to be the world’s gun store.”Google once committed to not building artificial intelligence for weapons or surveillance in a watershed moment of divorcing tech from the defense and intelligence industry. Earlier this year, though, the company scrapped that pledge. The campaign by the tech bros to win bigger roles for themselves in defense and intelligence represents a return to Silicon Valley’s roots. Hi-tech originally grew in northern California because of its early connections to the military and defense industrial base in the region, observed Margaret O’Mara, a tech industry historian at the University of Washington.“Silicon Valley has always been in the business of war,” O’Mara said. More

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    Russia will ‘undoubtedly’ discuss future Mars flights with Musk, Putin envoy says

    Russian officials expect to hold talks with Elon Musk soon about space travel to Mars, Vladimir Putin’s international cooperation envoy said on Tuesday. The envoy’s comments, which Musk has not confirmed, also stated that Russia wanted to expand its cooperation with the US on space projects.“I think that there will undoubtedly be a discussion with Musk [about Mars flights] in the near future,” Kirill Dmitriev said at a business forum in Moscow, going on to praise Musk’s efforts to push the boundaries of human achievement.The proposed talks would once again put Musk, the world’s richest man and a senior adviser to Trump, in an outsized and largely unaccountable role in international politics. Musk has joined in on White House calls with international leaders since Donald Trump’s reelection, and prior to his new role in the administration reportedly was in regular contact with Putin.Musk’s ownership of SpaceX and control of the Starlink satellite communications system have increasingly allowed him to take on the role of power broker in space travel and international telecommunications. In the US, Nasa has come to rely on SpaceX for the majority of its launches, and recently fired workers have raised alarms about his growing sway over the agency. Musk has also used his leverage over international telecoms to assert his political influence, including limiting Ukraine’s military use of Starlink during the Russia-Ukraine war and recently clashing with Poland’s foreign minister over the technology.Dmitriev, who was named by Putin last month as his special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation, also claimed on Tuesday that Russia’s “enemies” were trying to derail Trump’s efforts to restore a dialogue with Russia. His remarks came as Trump held a call with Putin on Tuesday to discuss a potential ceasefire in Ukraine and eventual end to hostilities after Russia invaded the country in 2022.Dmitriev said Russia wanted to work with Musk as part of Moscow’s efforts to strengthen and develop Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, and state nuclear corporation Rosatom. Dmitriev stated he was in touch with Roscosmos, Russian businesses and the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRussia said in 2022 it would start work on its own Mars mission after the European Space Agency (ESA) suspended a joint project in the wake of Putin’s decision to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. More

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    Elon Musk faces week of harsh setbacks amid Tesla selloff and Doge backlash

    Elon Musk began the week of 10 March with a friendly sit-down interview on Fox Business to talk about his work with the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the state of his businesses. Already, it had been a trying few days for the world’s richest man, who was facing a Tesla stock selloff and fierce backlash over his attempts to radically overhaul the federal government. His net worth declined over $22bn on Monday alone.After Musk jokingly brushed off initial questions about the mounting pressure, host Larry Kudlow asked the Tesla and SpaceX CEO how he was managing to run his numerous companies amid the chaos.“With great difficulty,” Musk answered, at first chuckling then taking a long sigh and staring off into the middle distance. “I mean … yeah”.The past 10 days have marked several of the most significant setbacks for Musk in months. Tesla, arguably his marquee company, continued to fall in value as investors worried about the threat of trade war and possible recession – as well as declining profits. Escalating protests against the company over the billionaire’s role in the government also grew in number and intensity across the US, coupled with rising cases of vandalism and social stigma against his cars. SpaceX has also struggled, with one of its rockets dramatically exploding in midflight last week and then an announcement on Wednesday that it was delaying a rescue mission to retrieve “stranded” astronauts. The company tried again two days later.Adding to Musk’s headaches, his social media platform, X, experienced widespread outages throughout the day on Monday. During his Fox Business interview, he claimed that it was the result of a “massive cyberattack” that the company had traced to the area of Ukraine.Musk is also dealing with increasing pushback over his role at Doge. Multiple outlets reported that the “first buddy”, as he’s christened himself, got into a heated exchange with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, during a White House meeting last week, which ended with Donald Trump appearing to rein in Musk’s power to make staffing decisions at government agencies with a Truth social post. A federal judge in California also issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday to reinstate thousands of the workers that Doge mass fired. Meanwhile, polling this week from Quinnipiac University shows that despite Musk repeatedly declaring that the public loves what Doge is doing, a strong majority of people disapprove of his initiative.After a long string of victories for Musk that included soaring share prices and a period of seemingly unchecked power following Trump’s inauguration, some signs of strain are beginning to show on his grip on his empire. He has lost around $119bn this year so far, although staggeringly still boasts a fortune $100bn greater than the next richest man in the world, and faces questions from investors on whether his political activity is hurting his companies.Rather than step away from his role in the White House, however, Musk appears to be doubling down.Musk turns to Maga world to turn Tesla’s fortunes aroundTwo days after his labored appearance on Fox Business, Musk was once again in front of the cameras. This time, he was smiling alongside Trump on the White House lawn as the president cooed over a new red Tesla Model S and gushed to reporters about what a wonderful car it was.“Everything is computer,” Trump said, sitting in the driver’s seat. “That’s beautiful!”At the climax of the transformation of the White House into a car dealership, Trump announced that he had bought the Model S. He likewise spoke out in support of Musk and told reporters that Americans should “cherish” the billionaire. Others in the Maga world soon followed suit, declaring their backing for Tesla and urging their followers to do the same.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I just ordered my new self driving Tesla!” Fox News host Sean Hannity posted the same day on X. “Details on how to win the Tesla of your Choice soon on Hannity.com!”The scene at the White House was a striking use of the presidency to endorse the business of the commander-in-chief’s biggest financial backer. However, the display also gave the impression that Musk needed Trump to reverse his string of losses and quell the backlash against him. Trump stated at the event that he would label demonstrations against Tesla showrooms as domestic terrorism. Attorney general Pam Bondi announced on Friday she would launch an investigation into vandalism targeting the company.“They fought the law and the law won,” Musk posted on X above news that Bondi was threatening vandals with up to 20 years in prison for attacking Tesla dealerships.The backlash against Tesla does not appear to be slowing; more protests against Tesla are set for the coming week. In response, Musk is deepening his embrace with the Maga world, including its most distasteful denizens. He spent a sizable part of Friday afternoon posting support for Tesla and Doge from rightwing media influencer accounts and Fox News clips. At one point, he retweeted a post that compared attacks against Tesla vehicles and dealerships to Kristallnacht, the infamous Nazi pogrom against Jewish-owned businesses that took place at the onset of the Holocaust. More

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    Keir Starmer lays down Ukraine peace demand ahead of Trump talks

    Keir Starmer has raised the stakes before a crucial meeting in Washington with the US president, Donald Trump this week, by insisting that Ukraine must be “at the heart of any negotiations” on a peace deal with Russia.The prime minister made the remarks – which run directly contrary to comments by the US president last week – in a phone call on Saturdaywith Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he also said that “safeguarding Ukraine’s sovereignty was essential to deter future aggression from Russia”.Downing Street made clear that the prime minister would carry the same tough messages into his meeting with Trump in the White House on Thursday.Starmer is likely to tell the US president that the UK will raise its defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product, in line with Labour’s election manifesto commitment.The prime minister is also expected to extend an invitation to Trump from King Charles for a second state visit to the UK.But the meeting is also expected to represent the biggest test of Starmer’s diplomatic and negotiating skills in his prime ministership by far, as he tries to retain good relations with Trump while making clear the UK and Europe’s red lines on Ukraine and Russia.View image in fullscreenSources said Starmer may speak to Emmanuel Macron on Sunday before the French president’s talks with Trump on Monday. The aim would be to agree a broad European position on the Trump-led effort to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.Starmer also spoke yesterday to the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, and agreed that Europe must “step up” to ensure Ukraine’s security.Starmer’s meeting with Trump is being described in Westminster as possibly career-defining for the prime minister. Former UK foreign secretary William Hague said it was the most important first bilateral between a prime minister and a president since the start of the second world war.After a week of extraordinary anti-Zelenskyy and pro-Russian rhetoric from Trump and his team, the US president issued another dismissive assault on Zelenskyy’s leadership and relevance to a peace deal on Friday, saying: “I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you. When Zelenskyy said: ‘Oh, he wasn’t invited to a meeting,’ I mean, it wasn’t a priority because he did such a bad job in negotiating so far.”View image in fullscreenAs well as dismissing the democratically elected Zelenskyy as a dictator, the White House has been pressuring Ukraine’s president to sign a $500bn minerals deal in which he would give the US half of his country’s mineral resources. The Trump administration says this is “payback” for earlier US military assistance.Zelenskyy has so far refused to sign, arguing that the agreement lacks clear US security guarantees.Reuters reported that the US was also threatening to disconnect Ukraine from Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet system if Zelenskyy does not accept the Trump administration’s sweeping terms.Ukrainian officials characterised the threat as “blackmail”, saying to do so would have a catastrophic impact on the ability of frontline Ukrainian combat units to contain Russia.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe news agency said the US envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, raised the possibility of a shut-off during talks on Thursday with Zelenskyy in Kyiv. An under-pressure Zelenskyy has signalled his willingness to accommodate Washington’s demand, but he has stressed he cannot “sell out” his country.Ukrainian officials are scrambling to find alternatives to Starlink in the event that Trump’s threat is carried out. Ukraine’s armed forces depend on the system to provide real-time video drone footage of the battlefield and to conduct accurate strikes against Russian targets.The Russian military uses Starlink too. Ukrainian commanders are now contemplating a nightmare scenario, in which Musk’s SpaceX company switches off Ukrainian access while continuing to offer it to the Russians – with the White House in effect helping Moscow to win the war.A senior Ukrainian official said his country’s armed forces need American satellite intelligence data. If intelligence sharing were to stop, Ukraine would struggle to continue its successful campaign of long-range strikes against targets deep inside Russia, he said.Asked if the US threat to turn off Starlink was blackmail, he replied: “Yes. If it happens, it’s going to be pretty bad. Of that we can be sure.” Frontline troops used the internet system continuously and it was fitted on advanced naval drones used to sink Russian ships in the Black Sea, he noted.Speaking on Friday, Trump rowed back on some of his earlier comments, which included a false claim that Zelenskyy was deeply unpopular, with a “4%” rating. Trump told Fox News that Russia did invade Ukraine but said Zelenskyy and the then US president Joe Biden should have averted it. “They shouldn’t have let him [Putin] attack,” he declared.Trump’s aggressive remarks have consolidated support for Zelenskyy among Ukrainians, with 63% now approving of him, according to the latest opinion poll before the third anniversary on Monday of Russia’s full-scale invasion.An Opinium poll for the Observer finds more than three times as many UK voters (56%) disapprove of the Trump’s administration handling of Ukraine as approve (17%).About 55% think it likely the UK will need to participate in a large military conflict over the next five years, compared with a fifth (20%) who think it unlikely. A majority (60%) of people believe the UK should increase defence spending. More

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    What does Elon Musk believe?

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    View image in fullscreenElon Musk is not a people person, as millions around the world will be able to attest after the planet’s richest man cut off food supplies, healthcare and probably even life itself to some of the most vulnerable without so much as a fore- or afterthought.Musk sees himself as a data man, wielding numbers like a machete to slash and burn his way through government waste and corruption as he leads the rightwing charge to capture the US state.Within days of Musk dispatching his minions to kick down the doors of the US Agency for International Development (USAid) and rifle through its finances, the agency was in effect out of business. Musk claimed USAid was “a criminal organisation” and full of Marxists – an assertion called “laughable” by the agency’s former administrator under George W Bush, Andrew Natsios, who describes himself as a conservative Republican.Musk didn’t care. Less than three weeks after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the head of the new “department of government efficiency” (Doge), a special group that Trump created, has built an extensive power base in Washington of a kind not seen before.Trump has given free rein to Musk to send his operatives into more than a dozen federal agencies to look for evidence of mismanagement and subversion, and to generally create chaos, outside of the usual bounds of oversight and regulation.Crucially, Musk now in effect controls the office of personnel management (OPM), which oversees federal employment. He immediately encouraged more than 2 million government workers to resign with the stated aim of forcing a few hundred thousand out the door.View image in fullscreenIt’s clear who Musk thinks should be running the country instead, from his recruitment to Doge of “special government employees” from his own companies and the wider tech industry to storm the federal citadels. They include a significant proportion of young male software engineers of the kind who tend to worship tech billionaires like Musk, including a teenager who has gone by “Big Balls” online.Few, if any, have undergone the security clearances other government workers need to access sensitive and personal information. If they had, Doge might have been discouraged from hiring another recruit from Silicon Valley, Marko Elez, who was sent into the US treasury department, where he had access to taxpayer records. Elez resigned on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal revealed he had posted racist messages on social media and defended eugenics.“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” Elez wrote on X in July.He was reinstated on Friday.On the face of it, Musk is implementing Trump’s commitment to cut spending, “dismantle the deep state” and sack “rogue bureaucrats”. But his embrace of the far right, including an unrestrained endorsement of the German nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), and what looked to much of the world like a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration celebrations, has raised urgent questions about Musk’s political beliefs and how he intends to use his newfound power.As it happens, much of what Musk is doing is also good for his businesses, including scrapping regulatory bodies and curtailing the power of unions and workers. The labor board, which upholds workers’ rights, has been frozen and agencies that regulated the financial industry have either been scrapped or told to abandon key parts of their work.Musk’s politics have been eclectic. In the past, he has backed universal basic income and a tax on carbon emissions. At the same time, he has a deep dislike of trade unions and public transport because it means being around “random strangers, one of whom might be a serial killer”. He espouses a visceral hostility to diversity programmes and appears to regard those who believe in helping the less fortunate as subversive.Thrown into this mix is Musk’s fascination with the pro-natalism movement, for which he has done his bit by fathering 12 children, and his hope that one day his rocket company, SpaceX, will help them colonise Mars.Raised in South Africa under apartheid, Musk is clearly suspicious of democracy and the leaders it produces. His grandfather headed a fringe political movement in Canada in the 1930s, Technocracy Incorporated, which sought to abolish democracy in favour of government by elite technicians, but its overtones of fascism saw it banned during the second world war.Musk shows some of the same tendencies, as do other libertarian-leaning Silicon Valley billionaires unhappy with the messiness of elected government. He has spoken in support of direct democracy, where policies and other issues are decided by popular referendums rather than elected representatives.In the meantime, Musk appears happy to embrace the US version of the “strongman” ruler through the Republican right’s “unitary executive theory”, which regards the authority of the president as paramount and Congress as an impediment to the implementation of his or her will.Over the years, Musk has described himself as “not a conservative” and “politically moderate”. He backed the Democratic candidate in every presidential election going back to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 until he soured on the party in the past few years.View image in fullscreen“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold,” he wrote on X in 2022.But there were clues to other motives, including a statement that he would be voting Republican because of Joe Biden’s support for trade unions and what he regarded as insufficient Democratic backing for his companies.Not long before last year’s presidential election, Musk declared that Trump would save American democracy from Democrats trampling on individual liberties. But he kept moving ever further to the right in public, with an open embrace of racist European political leaders, including the AfD, and the promotion of claims of a “white genocide” in the country of his birth, South Africa.Musk’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, has linked his shift from Obama voter to cheerleader for the AfD to the transition of his daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson.Wilson was 16 when she texted a relative: “Hey, I’m transgender, and my name is now Jenna. Don’t tell my dad.” The day after Wilson turned 18 in 2022, she changed her name because of “gender identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form”.Musk told Isaacson he was sanguine about the change but then Wilson became a fervent Marxist and wouldn’t speak to him any more, a situation he described as one of the most painful of his life.“She went beyond socialism to being a full communist and thinking that anyone rich is evil,” Musk told the author.Musk blamed Wilson’s progressive Los Angeles school and said he was disturbed at the “woke mind virus” holding back America.After California passed a law barring school districts from requiring teachers to tell parents of changes to a student’s sexual orientation and gender identity, Musk announced he was moving the headquarters of his two largest companies, SpaceX and X, to Texas. He said that the law caused “massive destruction of parental rights” and put children at risk of “permanent damage”.Musk did not say that moving his companies also had significant tax advantages for himself and his businesses, which would additionally be subject to fewer climate regulations than in California.Still, his apparent anger over his daughter’s transition appears to have set in motion a broader hostility toward identity issues, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, a favourite target of the Trumpian right. Musk announced that the words “cis” and “cisgender” were considered slurs on X, and he came out against pronouns, tweeting that they “suck”.In late 2022, another tweet linked Musk’s hostility toward the way people choose to identify themselves – an odd position for a man who claims to be a champion of free speech – to his anger at the Biden administration’s Covid restrictions.View image in fullscreenMusk mocked Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, who was instrumental in the lockdown and other measures to contain the crisis.“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” he wrote.Some saw the tweet as evidence that Musk was now openly identifying with the far right, which defied mask regulations and stay-at-home orders and called for Fauci to be locked up for intruding on their liberties.But while Musk’s hostility toward pronouns was personal, Covid regulations touched on his businesses and net worth.Musk refused to close his Tesla factory at the height of the pandemic, claiming without evidence that “panic” over the virus would do more damage than the disease itself. He disparaged social distancing, predicted that the virus would claim few lives in the US (it eventually claimed more than 1.2 million), and described the lockdown as “fascist” and “erasing people’s freedoms”. Musk tweeted a meme comparing Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to Hitler over his government’s Covid restrictions.Musk may have dressed up his position as a concern about people’s welfare but its immediate effect was to keep his factories rolling even if the people working in them were at greater risk of infection and death. And while Musk claimed a principled position in favour of individual liberty, he has a history of suppressing the rights of his own workers.In 2023, he said that he disagreed with the concept of trade unions.“I just don’t like anything which creates a lords-and-peasants sort of thing,” he told the New York Times Dealbook Summit. “Unions naturally try to create negativity in a company.”One reason Musk may not like unions is they tend to stand up for their members. He has faced accusations from former employees of aggressively using a secretive dispute-resolution process to fend off repeated claims of sexual and racial harassment within his companies, including accusations of women enduring a “frat house” atmosphere of groping and other abuses ignored and even perpetrated by high-level managers.Tesla has paid out millions of dollars to Black workers subjected to racial harassment.Yet, while Musk restricts the rights of his employees to seek redress from the courts, he and his companies filed at least 23 lawsuits in federal courts in the year to August 2024, according to Fortune magazine.They include a legal action by X against the Center for Countering Digital Hate over a report accusing the social network of making millions of dollars out of accounts spewing hate from “neo-Nazis, white supremacists, misogynists and spreaders of dangerous conspiracy theories”. A California judge threw out the lawsuit last year, saying it was clear the “case is about punishing the defendants for their speech”.Musk will probably spend a lot more time being frustrated by the courts. Judges have already put on hold his push for mass resignations from the civil service and placed some restrictions on Doge’s mass collection of data. Federal workers, unions and civil rights organisations are lining up a flurry of lawsuits to challenge Musk’s actions.But the courts themselves may become a target for Musk as he works to tear down the old order.Isaacson in his biography wrote that Musk once described being in “a state of war at all times” as one of his default settings.No one thinks that, so long as Trump continues to regard the billionaire as more of an asset than a liability, Musk’s thirst for power will stop at gutting federal agencies. The question is where he will launch his next offensive. More

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    Trump taps billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead Nasa

    A billionaire entrepreneur who led the first flight of an all-private crew of astronauts, and became the first civilian to walk in space earlier this year, has been nominated by Donald Trump to be the next leader of Nasa.If confirmed by the Senate, Jared Isaacman, also an experienced jet pilot with his own display team, will guide the space agency at a pivotal moment in its 76-year history as it moves closer to returning humans to the moon for the first time since 1972 and sending the first crews to Mars.The 41-year-old founder of the commercial aerospace defense company Draken International said in a tweet he was “honored” to receive Trump’s nomination, and would be “grateful” to serve.“Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,” he wrote.“On my last mission to space, my crew and I traveled farther from Earth than anyone in over half a century. I can confidently say this second space age has only just begun.“Space holds unparalleled potential for breakthroughs in manufacturing, biotechnology, mining, and perhaps even pathways to new sources of energy. There will inevitably be a thriving space economy … that will create opportunities for countless people to live and work in space. At Nasa we will passionately pursue these possibilities and usher in an era where humanity becomes a true spacefaring civilization.”Isaacman was the commander of September’s five-day orbital Polaris Dawn mission that saw him make the first spacewalk by a civilian, nearly 460 miles (740km) above Earth. He would succeed outgoing Nasa administrator Bill Nelson, a former space shuttle astronaut and Democratic senator for Florida who was appointed by Joe Biden in 2021.Nelson oversaw crucial advances in the Artemis program, including the pioneering November 2022 flight of the Artemis 1 moon rocket, which is scheduled to land the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface by the end of 2026.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the nomination of Isaacman, who is a close friend of the SpaceX founder and Trump acolyte Elon Musk, will raise questions over the future of a key government-funded component of the Artemis program, namely the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.Musk’s company has been progressing its own Starship heavy lift rocket in recent months, also designed for long-duration human spaceflight to the moon and Mars, and the commercial space industry is expected to become much more prominent during the second Trump administration.In a statement announcing his pick on Wednesday, Trump praised Isaacman as “an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut”.“Jared’s passion for space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new space economy, make him ideally suited to lead Nasa into a bold new era,” Trump said.Lori Garver, who was deputy administrator of Nasa from 2009 to 2013 during the Obama administration, said in a post to X that Isaacman’s nomination was “terrific news”.“[He] has the opportunity to build on Nasa’s amazing accomplishments to pave our way to an even brighter future,” she said. More

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    SpaceX live: Donald Trump and Elon Musk arrive at launch site for Starship rocket

    The weather is looking “fantastic” for the rocket launch, a SpaceX employee said.“Light breeze, no clouds in the sky,” he said.Beyond a return to the moon, Elon Musk is relying on Starship to be an integral part of his much more ambitious plan to get humans to Mars.In September, the billionaire SpaceX founder revealed he was optimistic that the first astronauts could reach the red planet inside four years, and be living there in a self-sustaining city in 20.Some observers say that’s an inconceivable timeline, while others see purpose in Musk’s assertions. Regular shuttle flights to Mars on Starship are absolutely achievable in the short to midterm future, they say.Here’s our article looking at how, and when, Musk might actually achieve his dream of making humans an interplanetary species.A banana has been placed inside the Starship flight, SpaceX says.“Today’s Starship flight test has a special payload onboard – a banana!” Starlink writes.“This universally-accepted measurement of scale is approximately the size of one Starlink Mini.”Responding to Donald Trump’s message wishing him good luck on today’s launch, Elon Musk replied on X:
    Honored to have President Trump at our Starship launch!
    The term Starship refers to the entire launch vehicle, namely the booster rocket and spacecraft of the same name.A main purpose of the program is to return humans to the surface of the moon for the first time since 1972.Nasa’s Artemis III mission, currently scheduled for September 2026, will incorporate a Starship lander, a variant of the spacecraft currently under test, to take a crew of two astronauts to the moon’s south pole.SpaceX has begun sharing its live broadcast of its Starship rocket launch.SpaceX says today’s flight test “aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities” and to “get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online”.“Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean,” the company says.Donald Trump has arrived at the site of the rocket launch with Elon Musk.Trump was seen wearing a red “Make America Great Again” baseball hat and blue suit; Musk wore an all-black outfit and sunglasses.SpaceX has said the propellant load of the super heavy booster is now under way.Donald Trump wished Elon Musk good luck on an “incredible” project as he confirmed that he will be attending the SpaceX rocket launch in Texas.Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, wrote:
    I’m heading to the Great State of Texas to watch the launch of the largest object ever to be elevated, not only to Space, but simply by lifting off the ground. Good luck to Elon Musk and the Great Patriots involved in this incredible project!
    Donald Trump has arrived in Texas to watch the launch, according to the account Trump Jet (Tracking) on Bluesky.The president-elect’s private Boeing 757 jet landed in Brownsville just under an hour ago after a 2hr 49min flight from West Palm Beach, close to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home.Today’s launch is the sixth test of the mighty Starship, and its fourth flight this year.The world’s most powerful space launch system has about twice the thrust of the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era that sent astronauts to the moon.One significant difference is that Starship is designed to be reusable.Its first-stage super-heavy booster was successfully captured in SpaceX’s so-called chopsticks – giant mechanical arms on the launch site “catch tower” – during the fifth test mission last month.Tuesday’s launch of the SpaceX rocket Starship comes just a week after Donald Trump announced that Elon Musk will co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, along with the former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.Musk had pushed for a government efficiency department and has since relentlessly promoted it, emphasizing the acronym for the agency: Doge, a reference to a meme of an expressive shiba inu dog and the inspiration for the name of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which Musk promotes.According to a statement by Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside government to “pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.SpaceX will be conducting its sixth test of its Starship rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, on Tuesday.The test launch is planned for 6pm CT (5pm ET or 2200 GMT) from SpaceX’s sprawling rocket development site in Boca Chica, Texas, Reuters reports.You can watch the launch on SpaceX’s website.Welcome to our live coverage of the launch of the sixth test of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket from Texas, where the US president-elect, Donald Trump, is expected to attend alongside the company’s CEO, Elon Musk.The rocket launch is scheduled for 4pm CT (5pm ET or 2200 GMT) from SpaceX’s sprawling rocket development site in Boca Chica, Texas, Reuters reports.Trump is expected to be joined by his son Donald Jr, and the Republican senator from Texas, Ted Cruz.Trump’s attendance underscores his increasingly close friendship with Musk, whom he has tapped to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency with the former Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy. More