Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, on Thursday said his company SpaceX would begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft after he engaged in an extraordinary public fallout with Donald Trump who had threatened to cancel government contracts with Musk’s businesses.
“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk posted on the social media platform X, which he owns.
A few minutes earlier Trump had posted on Truth Social – the media platform that he owns – that he might cancel huge lucrative contracts with Musk’s businesses, which include the SpaceX company that is building a fleet of rockets.
Aaaaaand…this is why you don’t outsource this kind of shit to private interests. At any point, they can just pick up their ball and go home. Now all the money they invested in SpaceX just gets flushed down the drain. The government winds up with nothing to show for it.
Which is strange because in my world where the govt pays for my work they own all my work as I make it.
It’s “weird” how the big boys get different rules
That’s because…technically…the government mostly provides contracts to SpaceX to take their stuff to and from orbit. They’re basically paying for a service…not investing in SpaceX’s product development. Even though that is an indirect result of giving them those contracts.
It’s like hiring a landscaper to do your lawn. They come with their own equipment, so even though they bought it using the money you pay them…you don’t own any of it. They do.
Sure, except they’re also helping them develop their technology and paying them for it.
It’s like hiring a landscaper, but they don’t have their own equipment to start with, so you have to provide your technology and knowledge, as well as employees sometimes, to help them build their equipment, and then you pay them a premium to do the work instead of doing it all yourself.
Sounds like corruption 101
The American space program has literally always run this way. NASA decides mission and requirements, private industry sells them rockets they usually then modify and perform their own checks and maintainence on.
The problem is that that system is predicated on having a functioning aerospace industry with multiple competitors you can go to instead of just one company with a viable product thanks the ravages of neoliberalism.
Except that NASA is a nationally owned branch of the government. They answer directly to the executive branch and are funded by Congress. They are not a “company”. They are a government agency.
They’re saying NASA relies on public companies, not that it is one. SpaceX is not NASA. NASA has increasingly relied on, and funded, SpaceX to complete their missions though.
The federal government can just national security/eminent domain take that shit.
I’ve said this a long ago and kept getting downvoted… I’m all for kicking Elon by making fun of the CyberTruck and calling everything be touches shit, but Tesla and SpaceX have some of the smartest engineers in the world and they made a lot of good technology that would be too sad to throw away because a Nazi capitalist owned the companies.
Normalize the idea of nationalizing Tesla and SpaceX, we can actually get there.
And a lot of it paid for by the government at least space x. Tesla not so sure about there are many dumb designs with Tesla. Like allowing people to burn in them because they can’t get out.
I’m sure the engineers are aware it’s a stupid decision, but you can’t really force the company to do the right thing. It’s a problem that’s been solved for centuries, but Tesla (by Musk I assume) is willing to sacrifice some lives to have the cars look slightly more sleek.
Now that would be HILARIOUS
Illegal aliens can’t own stuff like this anyway. Once he’s in South Africa super safe
And set up a conflict between the bourgeoisie and the Trump administration.
Well, kind of, but the problem here is Trump saying he will cancel the contracts.
SpaceX would be bound by their contracts, so if they are signed and Trump does not rip them up, then Elon cannot just walk away.
That’s not remotely how contracts work.
In the normal world, yes. All bets are off when everyone involved ignores laws and manages by vibes.
Breaking contract law does not currently seem to be in the oligarchs’ interests at this point.
Uh no they can’t if the US government doesn’t let them.
What are the courts going to stop them from seizing the equipment.
SpaceX is a privately owned company. I’m absolutely certain the US government doesn’t own any of their intellectual property. If they chose to, they could move the entire operation to any other country, and US courts could probably do nothing to prevent it.
The SCOTUS is useless as it’s in the back pocket of the Donvict, and it’s America we are talking about, you know they like to replace entire governments, if they don’t want the tech leaving it just will not be allowed.
All the Cheeto in charge has to do is say national security risk or Elons now a terrorist blah blah blah, the most powerful nation on earth will do whatever it feels like to protect itself.
Except that it is still America, and the government seizing private property…especially from a billionaire…is straight up “socialism” as far as most Americans are concerned. I have a feeling that might not go over as easily as people think.
I’d just like to note, Elon doesn’t have majority stake in SpaceX any more. He only owns 42% as of last year. I doubt the other investors will be so keen to burn all these bridges, but I guess we’ll see.
Not so sure. Stuff like ITAR exists to prevent exactly that. The us could also declare SpaceX to be some kind of national security interest.
SpaceX operates a fleet of privately owned ICBMs under license from the US government. Without the license and authority of the US government, SpaceX’s fundamental operations would be criminal: You and I would be arrested if we tried to build an ICBM without government permission.
The intellectual property they are using is subject to ITAR regulation. Any American trying to transfer that IP outside of the US would be quickly indicted. Any foreign government using or authorizing the use of that IP would be heavily sanctioned.
That’s not true. All nuclear weapons in the US’s arsenal are under the control of the US military. You are correct to say that it would be illegal for any private contractor to operate its own fleet of ICBMs…and that includes SpeceX.
ITAR doesn’t prevent SpaceX from moving its base of operations to another country. As I said, they are a privately owned company. Moving their operations to another country is not the same thing as “giving” that technology to that country.
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. ICBM. You’ll note that there is no “N” in that initialism. The presence or absence of a nuclear weapon is irrelevant. The missile itself is what I am talking about.
The missile, and all of the essential technology for building and operating it, are subject to export controls. ITAR and EAR, which apply not only to the physical items, but to the IP associated with those items as well.
ITAR allows SpaceX to take the name of the company to another country, and that’s about it.
Not the hardware, software, IP, or anything they would need to actually conduct their operations from that country.
StarLink could (probably) be moved out of the US, and rely on foreign launchers to maintain their satellite constellations. But not SpaceX, unless the US government specifically permits them to do so. Which they won’t.
Nah man space rockets are just ICBMs with a human payload instead of an explosive one.