Why the Pentagon just can’t quit Elon Musk

Generally speaking, the national security state frowns on its denizens having unauthorized contact with the leaders of America’s main global adversaries. That is just what Elon Musk has been doing, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported that the Tesla, X, and SpaceX chief has been having undisclosed conversations with Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials since late 2022. These conversations reportedly included a request from the Russian leader to avoid turning on Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The Journal reported that Musk’s Kremlin contacts were a “closely held secret” in government, and that even some White House officials had not been briefed on them, though there have been scattered reports in the media about them dating back to 2022. If true, the story is a matter of concern not only because of Musk’s massive wealth and influence, but because he holds a “top secret” security clearance, as both the Pentagon and NASA have become deeply dependent on Musk’s company SpaceX for space launches and satellite internet. Responding to Vox’s request for comment, SpaceX’s media relations account described the Journal article as an “incredibly misleading story … based upon completely unsubstantiated claims from unnamed sources,” adding, “As has been repeatedly confirmed by the Department of Defense, SpaceX has worked (and continues to work) in close partnership with the U.S. Government regarding Ukraine and denial of service to bad actors.” “Were these engagements coordinated and cleared? Was he debriefed afterward?” a former US national security official told Vox, on condition of anonymity. “If I went and talked to Putin without going through the appropriate steps, I would definitely lose my clearance.” NASA administrator Bill Nelson called for an investigation of Musk’s Russian ties after the story was published, while the White House declined to comment. In the near term, though, it seems very unlikely that Musk’s clearance would be revoked or his $3 billion government contracts be canceled. Whatever concerns national security officials might have about Musk, his companies — particularly SpaceX, which has come to dominate rocket launches and satellite internet — have simply become too embedded in American military operations to cut out, not least because for the moment, there are no competitors in a position to replace them. As Joshua Ian Rosenstein, an attorney specializing in national security law, put it to Vox, Musk may now be simply “too big to fail.” When CEOs go rogue This is not the first time Musk’s activities have raised national security concerns. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Musk activated his Starlink satellite internet network over Ukraine and donated terminals for the country’s use. Starlink, which allows users to connect to the internet via its network of satellites in areas where connectivity is low, has been vital to the Ukrainian war effort, particularly for operating the drones that have become so central to combat. But while he initially expressed support for Ukraine and the start of the war, Musk has not always been happy about how Starlink has been used by Kyiv. In September 2022, he personally ordered the deactivation of Starlink near the coast of Crimea to prevent a Ukrainian attack, saying he wanted to avoid being complicit in a “major act of war and conflict escalation.” A little more than half a year after the war started, Musk was posting on X that he believes Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, is rightfully Russian and should be formally ceded to Russia as part of an agreement to end the war. That’s a direct echo of Russian talking points, and a direct contradiction of the position of the US and virtually all Western governments. At various points, Musk’s company has threatened to withhold Starlink from use on Ukrainian drones altogether, saying the technology was never intended to be used “for offensive purposes.” Then there’s China. Tesla’s largest factory is in China and Musk has deepened his commercial ties to the country, even as many other American companies have been pulling back amid rising geopolitical tensions. He has described himself as “kind of pro-China” and more than a few critics have noted that his frequent advocacy for unrestricted free speech does not appear to extend to the Chinese Communist Party. Musk has also suggested Taiwan ought to be turned into a “special administrative zone” under Chinese control, along the lines of Hong Kong. (Support for such a scheme in Taiwan plummeted after China’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy over the past decade.) SpaceX told Vox that Starlink is not available in Taiwan because the Taiwanese government has not given it a license to operate and that this “has nothing to do with Russia or China.” It is true Taiwan has opted to work with one of Starlink’s smaller competitors, the UK-European company Eutelsat, to develop its own satellite backup. In a recent interview, prior to the Wall Street Journal report, Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Herming Chiueh told Vox his government was concerned that Musk “could cut the service [over] his personal opinion, so we don’t think this was a trustable partner.” Some US lawmakers feel similarly. “The fact that a single individual has been so disdainful of our legal system, our regulatory system, and yet at the very same time so complimentary to an authoritarian system in China, concerns me greatly,” a Democratic member of Congress told reporters this week, adding, “when we think about the the amount of government contracts he has, as well as in some domains, even the potential for some classified work, it is hugely concerning.” The member claims that while Republican China hawks had also raised concerns about Musk’s activities and interests in the past, they’ve become less apt to do so as he has grown closer to the Trump campaign. Indeed, the prominent role Musk has taken as a backer of former President Donald Trump’s current presidential campaign only adds to the national security concerns. He’s donated tens of millions of dollars to pro-Trump super PACS, devised a possibly illegal lottery to incentivize voters in the swing state of Pennsylvania, and turned both his own X account and the platform itself into a pro-Trump megaphone. As NBC reported, this has included personally amplifying content that appears to be part of an organized Russian misinformation effort. US intelligence officials have assessed that Russia is “undertaking a whole of government approach to influence the election” and wants Trump to win. (There’s no evidence that Musk knowingly spread Russian content.) Little Musk does is normal, but it’s important to remember that in general, it’s very unusual for the CEO of a defense contractor to get this involved in partisan politics.The X account of Tory Bruno, CEO of SpaceX’s main competitor United Launch Alliance (ULA), is almost hilariously anodyne in contrast to Musk, consisting mainly of photos of rockets and his grandchildren. Companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman regularly donate roughly equal amounts to both Democrats and Republicans. This makes sense. These are companies that depend on the government for business, no matter which party is in power, a fact their political activities underscore. Musk clearly sees things differently. He has described a Trump victory as an existential necessity for the future of American democracy and is certainly acting as if he believes this is so. But even if Vice President Kamala Harris wins, he has every reason to assume he’ll still be in business. Too big to quit There may have been no more vivid demonstration of the American government’s increasing reliance on Musk’s space business than the launch of a SpaceX capsule in September. The mission was to pick up two astronauts who were stranded on the International Space Station when the Boeing capsule they went up on experienced technical problems during flight. It was a reminder of just how much legacy government contractors like Boeing have decayed, which has only made Musk’s companies more important. As for the Pentagon, even as concerns have grown over Musk’s behavior, military commanders have been positively glowing in their views of SpaceX. The company has acquired a reputation for operating far faster and cheaper than its competitors and its partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket has been a game changer in an era where the military is rapidly building up its capabilities in space. In 2016, the company broke the monopoly on military space launches held by ULA, which is a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. SpaceX is also a privately owned company, unlike most large defense contractors, which analysts say helps allow it to be more nimble and innovate faster than its competitors, albeit at the cost of transparency (or accountability for the activities of its founder and CEO.) “Musk, for all of his eccentricities, has done a lot of classic things right,” said David Burbach, a professor and space policy expert at the Naval War College, speaking on his own behalf and not the military. “He hired the right sort of people. He has been willing to stay out of the way, let people do their jobs.” “When it comes to military space launches in particular, I don’t think it would be practical or prudent for the government to cancel its contracts with SpaceX because it would cause substantial harm to national security,” said Todd Harrison, a former space industry executive now with the American Enterprise Institute. So far in 2024, eight of the Department of Defense’s launches were on SpaceX rockets, against just two for ULA and one for a smaller company called Rocket Lab. ULA has struggled to keep up, and Lockheed and Boeing are reportedly looking to sell the company. “There is really no other company right now that can compete with [SpaceX], for scale,” said John Plumb, who served as assistant secretary of defense for space policy until earlier this year. The US military is also increasingly relying on Starlink for mobile internet connectivity. The military version of Starlink, known as Starshield, consists of a constellation of satellites built by SpaceX but owned by the US military. Starshield’s satellites are highly adaptable to different military purposes. A recent analysis published by SpaceNews compared Starshield to the iPhone for both its adaptability to different software applications and the degree to which it locks users into its platform in order to use those apps. The publication described it as “a Trojan horse that will enable SpaceX to further dominate the space domain and dictate policy to businesses and national governments alike.” “I have seen very little expression of concern,” from military commanders, Burbach said. “[Musk is] an incredibly good salesperson. I think his company has actually lived up to much of the hype, but in general, DOD right now is very eager to hear about solutions that can help them leap ahead, particularly when it’s cheaper than existing technology.” Case in point: SpaceX has reportedly been awarded the contract to build the next generation of classified surveillance satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. Just can’t quit you Plumb, the former assistant defense secretary, said it was far-fetched to imagine SpaceX would take action to hinder the US military, whatever Musk’s views. “SpaceX,” he added, “needs the US government as much as the US government needs SpaceX.” But Plumb did acknowledge that the military’s reliance on this one company was a sign of larger issues in the defense-industrial complex. “I personally believe it is really important to have resilience in our industrial base, to not be beholden to just one company, but I certainly don’t see us getting out of SpaceX any time soon,” he said. “We need more competition, not less.” Dan Grazier, who studies defense spending and acquisitions at the Stimson Center, said the fact that the US government is “kind of married to Elon Musk now” is partly a symptom of consolidation in the US defense industry, which has gone from 51 major defense and aerospace contractors in the 1990s to just five today. “When it’s your sole supplier, then the government doesn’t have a very good negotiating position,” Grazier said. Could new competitors be on the way? The best hope for disruption may come from Musk’s fellow tech plutocrat Jeff Bezos. Amazon is developing a competitor to Starlink known as Kuiper, which reportedly features some jamming resistant features likely to be of interest to military clients looking to gain an edge on their adversaries’ technology. Its activation has been pushed back until next year, however. Bezos’s Blue Origin is also developing the New Glenn, which has a reusable booster like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and could provide some competition for launch business. For the time being, however, SpaceX continues to be fairly indispensable. What comes next, if anything, will be heavily influenced by the 2024 election. Concerns about what Musk may be telling Putin, or what Putin is telling him, are likely to be brushed aside if Trump wins the presidency. The former president has discussed giving Musk a newly created position in his Cabinet as “secretary of cost cutting.” Even if that doesn’t happen, Musk is likely to remain an influential Trumpworld figure, and his various businesses can also be expected to benefit. And if Harris wins? Some believe that for all Musk’s influence, he has finally pushed things too far. Ian Bremmer, the geopolitical risk analyst and Eurasia Group CEO who first reported on Musk’s conversations with Putin two years ago, told me at a briefing this week that Musk “should not have a clearance right now. How he got the clearance given some of the things he’s done and said is kind of a shock and, I think, if it were not for an election period, that would have been reviewed and rescinded already.” However, Bremmer also acknowledged that the US government’s dependence on SpaceX and Starlink is a “serious issue for the US, and that’s going to have to be addressed.” For the moment, Musk is devoting a significant portion of his time and resources to electing a government that’s very unlikely to address it.