We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

Starlink should be globalized. A planet only needs one low-altitude orbiting communications network. Better to standardize the technology and platform and let them contribute to one system than to have a dozen identical competing systems crashing into each other and fucking things up for everyone.

Ah. My Kessler syndrome is acting up again.
There is no such thing as something being "globalized" The UN for instance is a debating club where the majority of the seats represent individual dictators who dominate but do not speak for their countries citizens.
The idea of 50 countries collectively providing 0% of the funds should determine the mission is somewhat laughable. Also no country on earth has a process by which foreign dictators can seize or direct a company run out of their nation.

I disagree.

You already have a government space agency. Maybe give them more funding so they don't have to rely on space-x to get their stuff into orbit?
There's a national telecom network already in place. It at least has the potential to be faster and more reliable, if it isn't already... At least compared to low earth orbit satellite coverage.

There's no good reason to continue providing Elon or his companies with any government handouts. Pull that funding and give it to.... I dunno, students who have more debt than homeowners with a mortgage..... NASA.... Literally anything that helps people?

You have NASA FFS. Just fund it.

NASA is too beholden to politics... You can't do 7 year builds and missions when the Senate flips every 4 years and has to kill everything the other side did on principle that it has a D or R attached to it. Everything is political.
- <.< Legitimate question, what was the last thing each party killed that was put in place by the other party?

No, we should regain control of our nation from fascists (this does not mean just replace the President), then nationalize SpaceX and Starlink, and make telecoms public utilities.

Don't give bail-outs to billionaires.

Then don't reimburse him.

literally nasa

Nasa with less risk aversion. If a Nasa rocket blows up that's big news. If a Space X rocket blows up, that's a Tuesday.
- yeah but if SpaceX becomes NASA then what

A lot of people are calling this a bailout for Elon, but in reality it would be a seizure. Elon doesn't want to let go of Starlink and the US likely wouldn't pay him what it's worth to take it over.

What people seem to be missing is the precedent this would set. It's all well and good when we empower the office of the president to seize a private company we don't like, but after we give them that power what's to stop them from seizing other businesses?

XYZ company refuses to get rid of their DEI policy because the shareholders voted to keep it? Well now the orange man can seize it.

Let's not forget that previously it took 2/3rd majority to confirm presidential appointments, but the Senate under Obama decided to change that rule to 50% to get past Republican objections. The result of this is all these shit appointments Trump has passed with 51% of the Senate, none of them would have gotten by if the Democrats hadn't made a precedent for changing the rules.

What people seem to be missing is the precedent this would set. It’s all well and good when we empower the office of the president to seize a private company we don’t like, but after we give them that power what’s to stop them from seizing other businesses?
XYZ company refuses to get rid of their DEI policy because the shareholders voted to keep it? Well now the orange man can seize it.
The problem they don't see is that once a precedent is set, also the other party can do it. What you point out is valid also like "XYZ company refuses to establish a DEI policy because the shareholders voted agains ? Well not the democratic president can seize it".
Let’s not forget that previously it took 2/3rd majority to confirm presidential appointments, but the Senate under Obama decided to change that rule to 50% to get past Republican objections. The result of this is all these shit appointments Trump has passed with 51% of the Senate, none of them would have gotten by if the Democrats hadn’t made a precedent for changing the rules.
Tipical case of not looking beyond one's nose

We should just fund NASA and let SpaceX and Starlink go bankrupt to competitors.

SpaceX has loads of capable engineers. If NASA gets a massive budget increase, they need to draw from that pool of talent.
SpaceX and Starlink basically have no competition, and if they did, said competitor would also need to be heavily subsidized.
- These last few years they've had very little successes, but the point is it should stay competitive and not be automatically handed to these doofuses. Even the USSR maintained a competitive rocketry sector.
NASA hasn't take the slightest risk since Challenger. They wouldn't have accomplished 1/20th of the launch capability SpaceX has developed in the last 5 years.
- Generally NASA doesn't "develop" rockets per se, they commission rockets to specification.

Yeah I mean the tax payers have literally already paid for all of both SpaceX and Starlink. The public paid for it, the public should own it.

They're just following in the footsteps of Comcast. The FCC gave SpaceX/Starlink $885.5 million to provide rural broadband after they gave Comcast over $1 billion less than 5 years ago to do the same thing. Starlink actually works out there from what I understand, so I guess that's something.
- The main problem is that starlink is not a viable ISP like Comcast. Relying on low earth orbit is extremely wasteful as you need to constantly launch more and more satellites. Starlink gives their satellites a 5 year lifespan where fiber can go on for 40 years or more. There are 7,500 starlink satellites, so we're talking a constant replacement of satellites all falling into earth's atmosphere, not being recycled.
  Starlink is literal space trash waiting to happen.
- The FCC revoked that award before the money was handed over because starlink wasn't meeting the speeds they needed to meet for the deadline 3 years in the future and they didn't think they would make it. The speeds that money was supposed to help them achieve launching the satellites required to meet it.
  No one else had that made up requirement put on them in advance.
  The goal that was 3 years in the future, which would have been around now or early 2026, required them to meet their speed (100d + 20u) and latency (<100ms) goals for 40% of the 650k rural users.
  They had 1.5 million US customers at the start of 2025, not sure how many are part of this rural 650k but id imagine the majority are, and only 260k of the rural ones have to meet the requirements.
  Ookla did a post about starlink in Maine where it shows many of the users are meeting those requirements
  https://www.ookla.com/articles/above-maine-starlink-twinkles
  Median DL: 116.77 (over the required 100)
  Media UL: 18.17 (just shy of the required 20)
  90th Percentile DL: 250.96
  90th Percentile UL 27.17
  If Maine is a representative example, then they are probably meeting their 40% target of 260k rural users despite not getting the money which would have accelerated things and made launches more focused on meeting the goals.
  Edit: extra details.
  Edit: I was just looking up more info on the program, and the deadline to report would have been in January 2025, so it would have been with the 1.5 million users they had at the start of the year, not around now, or 2026 as I'd said. That Ookla report was December 2024. We should get a report from the FCC (this summer?) that outlines how many others met their respective 40% target.
- Works is a strong word. It's a better choice than dialup or Hughesnet, but that's damning with extremely faint praise. If you need to rely on it you might be in trouble. There are still gaps in the coverage where you will be dropped for a while.

I am not saying that I don't agree with you. But this country is still not even close to considering nationalizing its own telecommunication infrastructure. Much less a privately held space company and a service of communication satellites. A large chunk of America believes that a for-profit business model for every good and service possible in life is the best course of action.

Yes it's the right long term goal, but the US is nowhere near ready for strong nationalised enterprises, they would just stop getting funding and die. There is a requirement for strong, positive minded government and a shared understanding of the benefits of having nationalised societal services before it can work.

Has anyone considered funding NASA?

They made rockets that didn't explode with duct tape and a TI-83 calculator.

Shouldn't be incompatible with nationalizing SpaceX and Starlink. Just give it all to NASA, actually.
- Sure, that's the ideal.
  Is it likely? Ehhhh
They didn't, because someone got paid to write this article!
Where's the grift tho? What's the angle? How will this enrich an uber-privileged pale bro?
- Looks like we found someone who believed it was financially necessary for the manufacture of the shuttle to be spread across the country.
What "they made" 50 years ago is of little value now. Expertise matters, and it's lost with time passing.
Still - yes. Nationalization is a bad solution because it gives the state power to nationalize. Seems a truism.
Just let NASA work in its normal role. Instead of replacing that with SpaceX contracts.
If that was actually their expenditure I don't think they'd have their budget cut.

Arrest Musk on violation of controlled substances acts, file immigration violation charges, invalidate his ownership shares due to securities fraud, as he falsified education and naturalization forms.

Or just emminent domain the shit. The Law is just made up right now.

Such an effort would be likely to fail AND take longer than the current administration is likely to exist.

You could always just fund the space agency you already have, instead of funneling money to a foreign billionaire.

No this the one time I’m with the commies. Nationalize that shit. Like you said it’s all taxpayer money anyway. A little bit of Wall Street speculation, but who gives a fuck about those people
- it’s all taxpayer money anyway
  Good point.
- So you wanna nationalize the whole telecom industry then?
- all taxpayer money anyway
  Yes but with very little to show for it. If the government just treated all undelivered orders as debt, it would end up deep in the red.
- it'll be sold to the highest bidder is my bet
  I would find it funny that billionaires would pass off the opportunity of taking musk's position on a discount
- this the one time I’m with the commies
  Are you against universal and free healthcare, education and retirement? Are you against improving worker rights, paid holidays, sick leave, guaranteed housing and guaranteed employment? Are you against unionisation of workplaces and collective worker decisions mattering in business? Are you against heavy regulation against climate change and pollution of the environment? Are you against anti-racism, feminism, anti-fascism and the redistribution of wealth from the richest to the poorest? I'm sure you have a lot more common ground with us commies than you think
- I'll settle for whichever one annoys him the most.
- NASA was always there and they couldn’t achieve what SpaceX has while simultaneously having a lot more capital to do so. I’m sorry but if there’s any proof that private sector’s self interest is a better driver of innovation than common interest SpaceX is it. This is a terrible idea that sounds like a good idea if you do not understand how good Musk was and is at cutting costs. That’s his actual real skill in business and is well documented. Doesn’t make him less of a prick but you also cannot downplay what he has achieved with this company.
That's true but it doesn't solve the problem now.
This is the thing, NASA is underfunded as it is, if we nationalized SpaceX, we wouldn't actually continue to fund it appropriately and it would simply die. Actually, with trump at the helm, nationalizing it would mean Trump immediately liquidating it. SpaceX is definitely the most successful rocket company in the US. It would be an awful shame for the space industry and for humanity's future in space.
I hate musk as much as the next guy, but I think the success of spaceX is undeniable. Their success with reusable rockets is not just impressive, it's ground breaking and important. Developing a fully reusable rocket is probably the most important challenge humans are working on in this era, and I only know of three companies attempting to do it. I don't want to kill the company that's furthest along.
- You guys are so stuck in the cult of personality. WE PAID FOR EVERYTHING SPACEX DID. IT BELONGS TO US.
- Of course he was always a jerk, but I still think of a reality where Elon never went (officially) Nazi and just stuck with his otherwise important companies. Tesla being an important early mover in EVs, especially in such an oil-dependent country, and all the cool stuff SpaceX has been up to.

Yeah, let's give the trump administration the power to seize companies it doesn't like, that is a great idea that def won't be abused all the time

Congress has always had this power. I'm personally for nationalizing telecomm companies.
- Health; education; energy production; food production & distribution; water; housing; mass transit and telecommunications should all be classified as essential services and nationalised. Everything else can be whatever.
- The problem would be that nationalising them in this day and age would mean prices would get even worse for everyone, as the government having a monopoly on these things would mean they can charge whatever they want, and with the amount of debt and deficit they have, they’d charge a lot.
The author probably forgot who runs the nation of usa.
- putin
We no longer live in a world where our biggest fear would be the government controlling high level corporations and their operators.
We now live in a world controlled by Sociopathic Oligarchs who can afford to create government level technology. Right now it's mostly tourism rockets and satellites, but now we see Skum weaponizing that technology, and/or using it as a bargaining chip. He has cut off Starlink in a war zone to benefit the county who defers to him, but is openly hostile to the US, and now he's threatening to cut off our access to the space station. He is using tech that WE PAY FOR with government contracts and grants, to pursue his own diplomacy, for his own benefit, and against our interests.
Eventually, someone will start building and stockpiling actual weapons, perhaps even atomics. Then we will be asking why someone didn't step in and stop them before they became a bonafide threat.
We paid for Skum's technology, and he gets to control it as a courtesy. Just the threat of using it against us should be enough reason to declare him a national security threat, confiscate his American-taxpayer financed businesses, and imprison him.
- We now live in a world controlled by Sociopathic Oligarchs who can afford to create government level technology.
  People have lived in that world for most/all of human history. Assuming you come from the west, you're coming from a place where for the last couple of hundred years it's been more cost effective to just buy the government instead. Is that better? Maybe, it's a little more stable. I dunno if it's good though.
- Eventually, someone will start building and stockpiling actual weapons, perhaps even atomics. Then we will be asking why someone didn’t step in and stop them before they became a bonafide threat.
  Bruh this has already happened over and over again. Nobody stops them because the most violence empire on the planet is leading the way. AFAIK the USA is the only state to have actually nuked people.
  See also the zio regime. Imperial allies supreme.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
We are already fucked. The choices given are siding with Trump, and end up like Russia, or side with Elon, and end up like Cyberpunk 2077
- ..or organize, start/join unions, get involved with your local community and build up some real resistance that isn't based off obscene wealth, lawfare or media brainwashing. Once you have experienced something real, it's quite hard to understand how or why anyone would fall for the alternative.
- Only useless people side with those two.
  Stop being useless.

There's already NASA which gets piss poor funding iirc

If not Musk should be forced from his roles in these companies. You cannot be a defense contractor and do ketamine.

how can you trust a board that trusts such incompetence, for DOD projects no less?
failure up and down.
- DOD is also responsible for what they accept.
Exactly. SpaceX was sunder scrutiny when he smoked doobie on a podcast. Now he is on drugs and nothing happens.

Best time would've been when he pulled that stunt in Ukraine, second best time is now

Now when a Putin simp is leading the country?

Throw Musk in prison for his many documented crimes, but don't support this kind of dictator shit.

I don’t think the majority of Americans understand what that means. They’ll just scream “commies!” And raise their maga flag.

But the idea of a starlink-like business owned by UN would be nice, and not an American corporation owned by a nepobaby Elmo.

In the USA space-x gets away with a lot. A few years ago they announced they were no longer going to bother with getting all the FAA approvals needed for their rockets because it took too long. Space-x still got government contracts.
- If your want proof that the wealthy live by a different set of laws, look no further than the time Elon Musk, ceo of SpaceX, went on a podcast and smoked weed.
  SpaceX has DOD contracts for launches, and somehow him blatantly violating federal law had no impact on the contracts his company fulfilled for the government.
  Do I think weed should be classified like it is? No.
  Do I think that everyone should be held to the same standard? Yes. And if anyone else had been involved in government projects while going on podcasts and smoking weed, they’d at the very least be fired.
- A few years ago they announced they were no longer going to bother with getting all the FAA approvals needed for their rockets because it took too long. Space-x still got government contracts.
  How long back was that? I genuinely didn't hear about that, but I believe that would happen. I tried googling "space x faa" but I'm getting results of FAA investigating rocket issues and approvals of rocket models.
You should familiarize yourself with Telsat Canada's LEO plans. Should be complete in less than 2 years.
Telsat Lightspeed
- They say this is for enterprise and government, and they talk about "terminals". This seems more like a Hughes network, and let me tell you, if it's that bad, you want nothing to do with it.
Then the UN should start their own starlink-like company. Nothing is stopping them.
- In an ideal world, starlink should be internationalized by the U.N.
  We don't need half a dozen companies in every developed nation putting their own garbage in orbit just to provide rural internet for a minority of a minority of the planet. Those systems are in orbit, they can provide internet to the overwhelming majority of humans.
  But instead we're gonna fuck up our ability to use a load of space telescopes needed to help see potentially dangerous asteroids, and all these satellites burning up in orbit are gonna fuck up the atmosphere, opening up the hole in the ozone layer even more.
Can you imagine who would run those companies if they were government owned?
- Yeah. A gov; be it the UN or a country.
  Having worked and then contracted to regional and Muni govs, and worked for dotcoms, I can tell you one of them follows way, WAY more of the regs than the other.
  It's like transpo & highways vs private roads and rail: one of them is way better-maintained when there is a comparison.
- What even is this comment?

Fold it in into nasa.

Lets reach a compromise. Impeach Trump (successfully) and then take away SpaceX from Elon. That way things would be fair.

Trump has been impeached successfully. Twice. What I assume you mean is that he hasn't been removed from office. That could be the consequence of an impeachment, but not necessarily.
I honestly don't care about Elon, just get Trump out.
- For whatever reasons Musk has found himself as ceo of some wildly successful visionary companies. It has not changed that they are finally bringing the future to the present, disrupting old technologies in favor of newer and better, for a better world. And the musk from before his breakdown deserves a lot of credit.
  At this point I no longer care about musk either, but SpaceX and Tesla are critical. Or at least SpaceX is. Tesla has not yet finished disrupting vehicle manufacturing , but if we’re content to let Chinese companies go ahead, they’re ready and willing. Legacy manufacturers have been slapped up the side of the face, but if they’re still not awake at this point it’s on them

I've been saying this for years. the footprint that spaceX represents in national launch authority is out of whack to say the least.

The only reason SpaceX exists is because Boeing and Lockheed managed to compete so badly the only solution was to merge their launch businesses.
So we had one launch company, then spaceX made it two providers, now its back to one because B-mart is using antiquated launch systems (single use).
- The only reason SpaceX exists is because Boeing and Lockheed managed to compete so badly the only solution was to merge their launch businesses.
  To compete even worse
- this isn't incorrect. ULA is a fucking pork barrel of hideous proportions. doesn't mean we shouldn't nationalize spacex.

Has US nationalized anything this millenia? I really don't see that ever happening

Tax burdens for billionaires
- Also losses. Gotta get that sweet, sweet too-big-to-fail bailout money.
Airport security was nationalized as the TSA. Aside from that no.
- So it takes a spectacular failure of capitalist grifters? Check.
Technically the auto industry in 2008.
- I mean if we count bailouts as nationalization, then now we've got like some kinda national "socialism" where state and corporate power have fused.
- Technically no. Bailout =/= nationalization.

No, we already have NASA

Then make it work.
- Stop cutting their funding and saying the earth is flat and that global warming is a myth.

See what we should do......is look to the french for inspiration on guillotine designs. Why would anyone not want to get rid of this asshole? Why would anyone like him?

- Man, that was worth the wait!
- Reverse accelerating space ship. I like the idea!
They think he's a tech god because he has money to burn, knows how to make himself look smart, knows how to slave drive, and knows how to cut corners without pissing off the wrong people.
- At least, there was a time when that appeared to be the case
- knows how to make himself look smart
  He said, talking about the guy who did a nazi salute on national television, intentionally, and then turned around and did it again for the people in the back. In case there was anyone who missed it the first time.

When's the last time the US nationalised something?

Racism. 1776.
The automotive manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler were partially nationalized in the wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis as were several banks... these were less a full government takeover and more of a government guided restructuring, but the government owned large stakes in these companies. Before that, the only full nationalization of anything substantial was the bankruptcy of the Penn Central Railroad and subsequent establishment of Consolidated Rail (branded as ConRail) the US's only national freight rail company.
Conrail was later privatized into what is now the private companies CSX and Norfolk Southern. The collapse of Penn Central was the largest bankruptcy in history until Enron in the 1990's. Amtrak, our national passenger rail corporation, is also a nationalized entity created around the same time as ConRail, for similar reasons, and is still nationalized (although the Trump admin wants to privatize it).
- Didn't know about Amtrak. Interesting. Thanks
I think during world war 2. But things were worse then 15% unemployment and people still had massive economic leverage. I don't think the US government is nationalizing anything anytime soon now. Neither party will participate in it because they are in the pockets of the oligarchs.
Tiktok?
- LOL You can't nationalise foreign companies.
Conrail?

Starlink should not just be nationalized but internationalized.
It is internet for everyone on earth, not everyone in the USA.

Every larger nation deploying their own constellation would be a pointless waste of resources, and every smaller nation having to find reliable partner-nations to tap into for that internet access would inevitably lead to people ending up without access due to political games.

Low orbit satellite constellations are the perfect candidate for sharing, they would literally sit unused over most of their orbits otherwise.

I think every larger nation deploying their own constellation would reduce people losing access due to political games.
If there's only one network with the same topology as Starlink, then the USA, China, or Russia will end up making a bunch of rules on everyone else just like Elon does today. Look how the USA abuses centralized internet infrastructure already. Multiple overlapping systems would be wastefully redundant, but reduces the risk of censorship.
We can't get along and can't have nice things.
- You want a truly multinational organization responsible for it, nothing that can be controlled by a single nation, even one as (ex)influential as the us.
  Something based on the UN perhaps.
  Combine that with making internet access a human right, to stop denying connectivity outright.
  Ideally then you could't enforce meaningful censorship, but more realistically you would route regions to their respective governments servers so they could censor as before on their territory.
  That would not guarantee free access to the internet to everyone, but should be an acceptable compromise to basically all nations.
  After that, other doubting nations could still pull their own constellation, nothing is stopping that.
  I would love if the internet program was uncensored, but that probably needs personal circumvention same as now, if such a program wants any degree of success.

Giving companies to the state doesn't always work well. However giving companies to the workers does.

We've seen China give companies to the state, but have there been any large examples of giving companies to the workers?
- Post Soviet Russia. There’s a fun history lesson in there. They gave stock in all the companies to all the workers. Then a couple rich people got together and tricked all the people to accumulate all the stocks. Those people became the oligarchs. And we know what happened to the workers of Russia. They all died in a trench in Ukraine very happy story.
- I can't think of any examples. Taking over the company requires capital, which is the one thing that capitalists constantly extract from workers so they don't have any.
  The workers of xs4all tried when their new corporate owners, KPN, decided to dissolve them. But a combination of lack of funding and unfriendly courts prevented that. They did end up starting a new company though...
True. We have a lot of public owned companies in Croatia, they are the most corrupt. Big comoanies are too, but not to that extent
- If the state is bad giving it a company just seems dumb. Giving the workers ownership, like profit share, only supports working class people.
Ya like in Russia! When all the poor got tricked out of their shares and a billionaire class was made which continued to strangle the poor for 30 years
Which... is mostly what SpaceX already is. It's a privately owned company, and the employees own a huge amount of the shares
- Oh, high standing officers controlling shares in a hypercapitalist megacorp, I see how that can be confused with siezing the means of production from the jaws of capitalism, but I think you and him are talking about vastly different things to be honest
- Any evidence to this? Even if it is true I doubt it's evenly distributed.

We? No. USA can if it wants that shit.

American exceptionalism is so fucking annoying. Their country is failing to a point hopefully this first person shit rightfully corrects to third person.
- American exceptionalism definitely sucks, but this is not an example of American exceptionalism. The source is an article from an American magazine, published for an American audience.
- It’s worse here than on Reddit, IMO.
Global communities reveal the disgusting chauvinism of the nationalist "we". It's cult speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
Agreed. But also commies believe that when the state takes something, "we" will get it (and they fail to see why states sponsor their useful idiocy)
- The point of communism is that things are state owned.

Just having such wealth and thus power in hands of singular humans is risk to all of humanity. With musk you are but big enough drug fueled temper tantrum away from pretty important infrastructure coming crashing down.

No I would not like taxpayer dollars to buy out Elons shit shows.

Hard pass. Thanks no thanks jacobin

I wouldn't nationalize anything long as the orange could possibly profit off it

Never gonna happen under republicans... or dems as they are sell outs too.

We just need to allow them to keep the money. They like money. Give them 10% as a finders fee and the Yes vote will be unanimous

Oh my god, please. Just to see the temper tantrum from Musk.

Step one Musk needs to be arrested and sent to El Salvador.

No thanks. We need to shut down all U.S. affiliation with prisons outside the U.S. Release those prisoners or transfer them back to the U.S. and have proper trials. Trump needs to stand trial for the fake electors and for every unconstitutional measure he has done before/since as an unconstitutional act that the Supreme Court deems unconstitutional should not be considered an official act. The President should be suspended from all duties until Congress performs an investigation draws up the articles of impeachment and it is tried by the Senate.
Musk should be tried for election interference and any other laws he may have broken but it should be done right here in the U.S. If anything freeze all of his accounts and require him to step down from any/all roles within his companies as part of his required bale terms, or otherwise he would be choosing to spend the time awaiting trial in jail.
These actions would ensure they aren't trying to drag court cases out for years, they would want the court cases to move along faster.
Would Trump get convicted by the Senate, unlikely. That's on us for voting terrible people into the legislative branch. But we can't complain about those who break the law if we think it's fine to break the law when it fits our wants. We need to update those laws legally or tear the whole thing down and say Musk and Trump didn't break any laws because we didn't think those laws mattered as well.

seize it via eminent domain.

I think that's a complicated question. It's both yes and no. Yes, we should nationalize them. No, nationalizing them should not be by tRump. That sets the precedent, or at least reinforces, the concept that the architecture of industry can be nationalized as payback for petty political squabbling. They should be nationalized, however, because fElon has proven himself to be unstable, reckless, petty, and a risk to the nation.

remember the halcyon days when NASA could do something and the president might not like it, but they were all FUCKING ADULTS and the grift was well distributed amongst the congresscreatures, so it never devolved into adolescent twitter whining?
goddamn those were better than whatever this shit is
Not so much because Elon is the way he is, but because the company is vital to the national interest.
- That too

Yeah. Let’s give Trump that power.

Pedo-nation

Agreed. These are things that should be of the people.

These things only exist and are as good as they are because they’re not government owned and run.
Look at NASA compared to SpaceX to see why this would be an absolutely terrible move. Government is where projects like these go to die, while making every politician and contractor involved filthy rich.
- So how come NASA was doing all these things before SpaceX even existed? SpaceX never put anyone on the moon. NASA did.
- It dying is better than it being in the hands of a billionaire fascist.

Quite ironic from people constantly accusing their political adversaries to be communists...

Errr... am I mistaken? This is the first time I'm hearing about nationalizing SpaceX and it's from Jacobin....
Does Jacobin make a habit of calling people communists? Pretty sure they advocate for socialist positions usually....
big spiderman pointing at spiderman vibes if true
- Jacobin is a late 18th early 19th political spectrum. It is not relevant to this situation.
Well that's not really the case. Conservatives will accuse progressive of being communists, and claim any social services are examples of communism. But it's mostly those progressives here on Lemmy suggesting communist ideas.
So it's not really ironic, just unsurprising I guess.

One way to get businesses to move their factories back to the US due to tarrifs: Start nationalizing them.

/s

I mean if they're utilities, we shouldn't let a board decide what should rightfully be in the hands of the voting public. Really they should welcome a stable (OK maybe not so stable in the US atm, but generally...) owner as the government.
- Just because something is a “utility” it doesn’t mean that the government should own and run it lol.
Take the /s off the ruskies might believe you and run with it

The precedent that will set and the implications... No... We should not do this.

Health insurance, ISP, Oil Cos, and utilities should also be nationalized. The US is a weird place where everything is a business. A shithole capitalist hellscape
- Those are different to taking over private companies. The government should, imo, compete against private enterprise in those areas, in turn bringing prices down and making it better for the taxpayers.
  NASA is government owned. Look at the state of it. Do you think the government taking over SpaceX would really be a good thing?
- Tankies live in alternate reality where they think that nationalization is extremely common and is a magical solution to all of societies problems... even though this view is entirely delusional.
  For example, only 3 countries have nationalized the entire ISP industry, and those are Cuba, Turkmenistan, and North Korea. All three of which are horrid tyrannical dictatorships with horrible internet. We should NOT be like them. Even when it comes to health insurance, except for 3 countries I just mentioned, every single country allows private health insurance, even if their system is public. Clearly nationalization is not what you think it is.
The precedent that will set and the implications
and what precedent is there for dealing with the executive of your country's entire space launch infrastructure when they become dependent on horse drugs?
No really, what's the precedent here, I want to know. Because if we set a precedent by ignoring it until the problem is impossible to ignore, that's gonna be a far more expensive fix.
So yeah, yeah we should consider this very strongly.
- If the government actually nationalized SpaceX, the precedent would be insane. You’d be telling every private company working in defense, infrastructure, or tech that if they become too essential, the government might just take it. Doesn’t matter how much risk or capital they fronted.
  SpaceX isn’t just launching rockets for fun—it’s practically a branch of the U.S. space program at this point. GPS, Starlink for military comms, launching classified payloads, putting astronauts in orbit. If we nationalize that over a political pissing match between Trump and Musk, we’re basically saying innovation is conditional on obedience.
  And let’s be honest—once you do this to SpaceX, you open the door to doing it to AWS, Tesla’s energy grid systems, Google’s AI infrastructure. Any private company that gets too important suddenly becomes “too critical to stay private.” That’s a fast track to killing private innovation in sectors where we need it most.
  If Trump’s threatening funding, and Musk is threatening to walk, and the public’s response is “just take the company,” then we’ve officially politicized the tech-industrial base. That’s not governance, that’s dysfunction.
  Nationalizing SpaceX would be a Cold War move in a modern economy. It might feel good in the moment, but long-term, it's a terrible idea.
Nationalization is the opposite of privatization, it's how the US's bureaucratic state was really built, we should absolutely do this and right now is the time
- No, this is just pure ignorance. The US never nationalized any sector. The US has only used nationalization as a means to stabilize certain sectors from collapse temporarily, and even this happens very rarely.
  Nationalization stable, growing industries would have devastating impacts on the economy. These companies are running just fine, and they're providing their services reliably and at competitive prices, what would be the justification to nationalize them? If the government feels like it needs more control on these companies they can pass regulations, and if they want total control then they should launch their own public alternatives.

This is what happens when you meddle in politics

The oligarchs wouldn't like that precedent but they might go for purchasing SpaceX since it is owned by a foreigner. Kind of like with TikTok....

why stop there?

do it to meta, twitter, amazon, etc

Based? Then they can become regulated.
Fediverse is superior to state-owned.
Now that you mention it, we need an Amazon replacement too.
But that's communism, and .world is famously against that
- No, we just hate people that glaze ruthless dictators and genocidal maniacs whose whole ethos was contradictory to the very idea of communism just because they had a red flag.

I would suggest that maybe you should leave SpaceX alone, if you want to still have a space program.

Maybe think about to nationalize healthcare insurance, it seems to be something more usefull

Yeah wait until we we have someone in power who gives a shit about science and then re-fund NASA and nationalize SpaceX under the NASA umbrella. (Pipe dreams, I know)
- I don't think that the US currently can go back to the times when Kennedy announced that in 10 years they will put a man on the moon, by a long shot.
  To have someone in power that give a shit about science, you need a revolution to wipe out the current political class and radically change the mentality of the population.
Yeah, let's leave all that power in the hands of one narcissistic egomaniac who's frequently going on ketamine benders. What could possibly go wrong?
Who needs this bs space program anyway?
- The humanity does. Well, maybe not “need” it but deserve it. Finding out about the world around us is what we exist for.
- Right. Now go back to live in a cave.
- "Who needs NASA anyway", "who needs to go to space anyway" Very narrow-minded viewpoint. Like it or not spacex is cutting edge

No thanks, demolish Leon Hitler's space program and bury it. NASA should be the US leader for space missions and not a South African neo-Nazi sack of shit.

What? Why?
.he wants to create a 3rd party, let him.

Dissolve them.

In acid?

NOW they complain about giving Musk money?
Most of the 38 billion was given by Biden.

imagine how many more rockets we could reuse if the NASA subdivision formerly known as SpaceX did literally any of the standard, rigorous fault-checks.

If we do, we'll definitely reach mars. I can imagine it now! Its 3055 and everything is totally fine now that we can escape to Mars in an inflatable city. A whole 4000 square feet of freedom soaring thru the sky with the last of us aboard ready for a whole new life and a good 7 in inflated cities for our children to live. She changes her name to Mother Gaia and His name is now Adam. One day in the distant future perhaps a large meteor would come roaring and reshaping our planet into livable space again.

Few words are dirtier to Republicans than "nationalize". They must be torn between following their god-emperor's hurt feelings and allowing Musk's company to be taken over by the government. The best I see them doing is cancelling all contracts and subsidies with SpaceX/Tesla and passing them off to its competitors.

Just weird it in a way that is more capitalist lingo: " The govt will acquire a majority controlling stake and take the company private under it's direct control"

Also the Tesla charging infrastructure!

Nationalize the cars too, fuck it

Maybe... But never going to happen. Privitization and capitalism work the other way in the imperial core.

No, they're fine remaining as private companies. If the government wants to better control over the companies then they can pass regulation and if they want total control then they can build their own alternatives. Nationalization of companies should never be used as a political weapon.

Nah fuck the shareholders, if they do something we depend on and pay for it with tax dollars then we should own them.
- Yeah, we're not going to nationalize the entire economy because that's really stupid. Our tax dollars reach every nook and carny of the economy, but that's fine. Tax dollars are meant to be used in a way that makes the country operate safely, smoothly, and reliably. A lot of this is done by putting the money back into the economy in the form of subsidies, welfare, wages, and government contracts. It's fine for the government to pay a business to provide as long as the business is offering fair market prices and they're delivering an acceptable product or service. The tax money that goes into such a business doesn't just go to the shareholders, it also goes to everybody else as well.
  That being said, shareholders can be scumbags, I'm with you there. If they are clearly conducting unethical behavior or illegal behavior then they should be immediately cut off. This includes things like delivering unacceptable products and services by cutting too many corners or committing fraud to take more tax money than they should or trying to scheme to monopolize and so on. These types of shareholders should've receive bailouts or awarded government contracts, they should be thrown in jail. But we shouldn't nationalize the economy because some shareholders are crooks.
Nobody thinks about that, just about hitting the people they don't like. They don't think of consequences, they don't think that nationalization means humongous companies and wealth in fact changing hands in favor of people who already control the government.
That's every fascist regime in history BTW - make your natural opponents hang themselves. Like in Russia in 1999 groups people most hurt by Yeltsin's regime were deceived into voting for Putin, because he managed to create that "Soviet intelligence agent" image, despite being continuation of said regime. Or again in 2004, when he managed to take credit for growing oil prices, which meant that said groups of people feared literal starvation less, and the factor they've grown by compared to 1998 was so huge, that Russia's level of life really didn't catch up, but that was enough. Hold people in misery, throw them bones, they'll be grateful.
Also why most Russians gloated over Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, other oligarchs being beaten by Putin.
Cause the oligarchs seemed the face of that regime, except Putin was its soul materialized. They somehow thought that when he hurts all the oligarchs enough, things will be good.
- This is a very valid point. Nationalization essentially means transferring control of these companies to either Trump or congress as well giving them power to use nationalization as a tool. Not only are they horrendously incompetent but they're also sure to weaponize it. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump went on a spree nationalizing "liberal Democrat" companies or nationalizing companies that compete with his businesses.
Would you support forcing Musk out of his roles in these companies due to his drug useage?
- Yes
I agreed with this sentiment six months ago, but now I like public hangings and nationalizing companies
- Nationalizing companies is not going to fix the accountability issue we have in the country. The same problems are going to happen, just under new management.

The nationalization of SpaceX will mean a slowdown in development, like in the case of NASA.

Ignoring the lack of evidence or argument presented here for that, I'd rather take a slowdown than Musk get a single new dollar.
Because American politicians would rather spend the money on engaging international wars. NASA will only get the funding it desperately needs if one of US' rivals one up them, like how the launch of Sputnik spurred the race to the moon.
sounds good who gives a shit

Any political take from Jacobin can be safely ignored.

And the international customers, what about them? The ground stations, POPs, and terminals in other countries, hmmmm?

SpaceX's largest customer is the US government; once that relationship has been repaired I'm ambivalent about private/public ownership.
HMmmmM?
because let's be honest, without tons of US GOV'T SUPPORT, SpaceX wouldn't have ever been able to provide all those POPs, terminals and services. Funny thing that.
Dude… nationalize just means the US takes ownership of the company. They keep all the employees they keep all the customers. It runs like normal under new ownership. The taxpayers now own it. it’s a great idea.
You see too long we have been using public funding and allowing rich people to privatize the gains. It’s time to privatize those games and take back what we invested in as US citizens. We will still offer you eurocucks Internet since apparently it is more important than having a moral fiber in your body
- I didn't say it was a bad thing, I wanted to know about some of the broader implications, e.g. govt ownership doesn't remove legal obligations. I doubt the govt could continue to offer service under the previous T&C, some sections would need revision. And Starlink's T&C are slightly different in some countries, as are the operating conditions. Some countries who are nominally friendly with Starlink/SpaceX to allow ground stations, POPs, etc, might not be so keen on the US govt controlling things.
  These are just some of the things that popped into my head when I read the article.
Seriously this comment doesn’t make any sense. It’s like you do not understand what you are commenting on and yet here you are with four up votes and now have my down vote and go forth and use a dictionary before you comment next time

That would literally be the worse thing that could happen with regards to them, because they only exist and thrived because they are private enterprise. If the government were capable of doing what those companies do and doing it well, SpaceX and Starlink wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Can you even imagine just how much money would be wasted and misused and unaccounted for, while nothing actually got done?

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is delusional

Please. They only exist because of government funding. If NASA had as many rockets explode as SpaceX has, people like you would be screaming about the waste of taxpayer dollars.
Also, it's only a matter of time before starlink satellites crash into each other and start a chain reaction. You can kiss space travel goodbye after that.
- isn't it amazing how much private companies can do when given hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal teat?
  wow. that private enterprise just rocketing up out of the atmosphere by yanking on it's bootstraps so hard.
  just, you know, after a few more hundred million, burp. ahem. just a few more.
- If NASA had as many rockets explode as SpaceX has, people like you would be screaming about the waste of taxpayer dollars.
  The point of the launches that have ended in explosion were to test various parts of the systems and hardware, and to learn if/when a "disaster" does happen. That's how you improve things, make them better and safer. Would you prefer when we finally send people to the moon or to Mars that it's the first time we've launched that rocket? Those explosions weren't bad things.
Again someone who thinks that public policies are natural laws...
NASA could do and did do what SpaceX is doing now, but they are beholden to the government and if the government says "we don't do that for ideologigal reasons" then it doesn't matter what can be done.
- Ideological reasons? You think nasa hasn’t made reusable self landing rockets and boosters because of ideological reasons?

Do that, so that when the US Gov. falls SpaceX and Starlink does too.

have a government run space agency

a private company shows up

does everything better at a fraction of the cost and actually innovates

commies on lemmy: We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

Have a government run space agency, government constantly cuts funding. Awards contracts to incompetent military company to build over priced rocket. Crony capitalism and money disappears.
Private guy steals all NASA talent from budget cuts builds talented team, innovates new technologies for rockets and then goes full blown Nazi and you love him even more.
Great judgement cal here chief. You’re worse than the commies
- You're conflating Musk with his companies. He might be the one who founded them, but these companies run themselves. This goes for Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. The leadership, research, production, and management are all handled by company employees.
  But that's besides the point, regardless of how you feel about Musk himself, there's clearly a place for private companies in this area. NASA and other space agencies are not businesses, they're research agencies. Their job is to expand scientific knowledge and innovate new technology. They can't run a service like SpaceX, which btw doesn't only serve the government by also other governments and the private sector. It's better for them to just outsource shuttle launches entirely to the private sector which is why they've been doing it for decades. It just so happens that SpaceX provides this service at really good price reliably and safely, which makes them the best choice. It's symbiotic relationship. It's an ecosystem where one sector compliments the other.
- Have a government run space agency, government constantly cuts funding. Awards contracts to incompetent military company to build over priced rocket. Crony capitalism and money disappears.
  That government guy sure seems incompetent, I hope no one puts it in charge of a space company.
  Private guy steals all NASA talent from budget cuts builds talented team, innovates new technologies for rockets
  That private guy sure seems like he knows what he's doing, I bet he'd be great at running a space company.
  and then goes full blown Nazi and you love him even more.
  IDK where that's coming from, I never said that, you're just making stuff up now.
A private company shows up that gets federal funding while the space agency gets funding consistently cut while having to support multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects.
A private company whose survival is 100% reliant on government money.
Capitalists on Lemmy: private company is better just because it's private
- This is a poor understanding of how the system works. SpaceX is company that provides a service. This service is open to anyone who wants to use it, but this happens to mostly be the government. The reason is because it's services are cheap, safe, and reliable. SpaceX does what it does very well, and the government chooses their services because it's economical.
  NASA and other agencies provide a service, they're not companies. They're research agencies who's job is to advance scientific knowledge and developed new technology. Their goal isn't to create a sustainable business, but to conduct research that's beyond the capacity of the private sector or individual researchers.
  The public and private sector compliment each other. They do things that the other isn't good at. It's an ecosystem. Getting rid of one will cause the whole system to collapse... and that's not a good thing.
- No matter how much you cut from NASA it always had more funding than SpaceX did and innovation in space exploration was dead until SpaceX came around.
  Nationalization will make SpaceX yet another bureaucratic, money waster for the government to maintain. By being private if SpaceX becomes shit the government can just drop them at any moment.
  Giving things to the state is a dumbass idea. Exhibit A: the entire current administration.
- Government agency starts multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects, delays ensue, costs overrun, results are unimpressive. It has to rely on private contractors or other countries for the most basic things, spends $211 billion for a space shuttle program that goes nowhere and ends up costing $0.5 billion per launch.
  Private company goes from nothing to a successful rocket launch in 10 years for less than $1 billion, half of which is private funding. In the next 10 years makes rockets reusable, lowers the cost to orbit by 30x, launches a viable commercial service people are willing to pay for.
  Communists on lemmy:
  Capitalists on Lemmy: private company is better just because it's private
With the amount of logical deduction, you just did here. You should just join the other commie I was posting under.
“ I don’t really know what the fuck’s going on so I’m just gonna make up some shit to fill in the blanks because it makes me feel better.”
Governments: spend 80 years developing space tech with public funding, allowing humanity to walk on the moon, have global positioning satellites, and essentially kickstart the computing industry from a necessity to build computers for orbital calculations
Private companies: mostly disappear and waste shareholder money, like Virgin or like Bezos' attempts at space, with one company with public funding raking in those 80 years of publicly-funded research to itself, underpaying and exploiting its engineers, and lowering the costs at the expense of safety due to cutting in safety measures thay will never be tolerated when humans ride those rockets
Dumbass liberal lemmitor: pRiVaTe Is ClEaRlY sUpErIoR
Also, you're focusing on the space agency of the most corrupt developed country in the world: the USA. Maybe compare the costs with those of the Chinese Space Agency?
- This is such a childish take. The private and public sectors are not opposites and they don't contradict each other. They serve different purposes in the economy, and they compliment each other quite well. It's an ecosystem where one covers the gaps of the other. We need both.
  Also, you’re focusing on the space agency of the most corrupt developed country in the world: the USA. Maybe compare the costs with those of the Chinese Space Agency?
  NASA as well as the other American space agencies absolutely floor the global competition and it's not even close. When it comes to China, they will always have cheaper prices because they are poorer country with a weaker currency, which means they'll have a stronger purchasing power. In real terms, Chinese labor is much cheaper than American labor, Chinese materials are cheaper than American materials, Chinese manufacturing is cheaper than American manufacturing. China's space expenditure is actually around as the US as percentage of GDP (both are around 0.5%), but China's economy is smaller per capita and therefore they have a smaller budget to work with. This is why the US has the biggest, the most advanced, and the most flashy projects while China seems to be able to do a lot with less.
- Governments: spend 80 years developing space tech with public funding, allowing humanity to walk on the moon, have global positioning satellites, and essentially kickstart the computing industry from a necessity to build computers for orbital calculations
  Yes, government funded endeavors are sometimes the only way to do things that don't have a clear ROI but they are also incredibly inefficient and as such should be kept only until it becomes viable for the private sector to take over.
  Private companies: *mostly disappear and waste shareholder money, like Virgin or like Bezos' attempts at space
  That's the beauty of the private sector, pure meritocracy, if you suck - you die. If those were public initiatives they would have been kept regardless of the costs or the results, wasting the taxpayer's money instead of the shareholders'.
  one company with public funding raking in those 80 years of publicly-funded research to itself
  If it was that easy NASA or all the failed companies you mentioned would have done it themselves. SpaceX has done an absolutely incredible job at innovating in the industry that has been in stagnation since the 80s, designing rapidly reusable rockets, lowering the cost per kg to LEO from $72k in today's money, from the space shuttle days to $2500 and planing to reduce it to $10 with starship.
  The public funding part doesn't mean free money from the government, the government pays SpaceX for fulfilling contracts because NASA can't do it themselves, at least not as efficiently as SpaceX. Right now majority of SpaceX's revenue comes from starlink which mainly serves private consumers so it's reliance on the government contracts is being overstated.
  underpaying and exploiting its engineers
  SpaceX $155K-$247K/yr ($117K - $175K/yr base pay + $39K - $72K/yr stock)
  NASA $113K - $158K/yr
  lowering the costs at the expense of safety due to cutting in safety measures thay will never be tolerated when humans ride those rockets
  As of 2025, SpaceX is the only U.S. company with a human-rated rocket system certified by NASA for regular flights to the International Space Station. NASA completed the certification of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket in 2023, marking the first time a commercial system was certified for human spaceflight.
  Dumbass liberal lemmitor: pRiVaTe Is ClEaRlY sUpErIoR
  Yes.

Nationalization is so communist thing to do.

Doesnt make it a bad idea tho :D
- Yes it does.
Okay 👍
don't threaten me with a good time!
Marxist are genuinely dumb enough to understand why this would be an issue.
Also every African despotic regime that has has ever existed.
- Stopping exploitation by Shell, BP & Friends isn't exactly what made those regimes despotic
- Despotic Ibrahim Traoré, using the money from nationalised formerly French gold mines to checks notes give $180.000.000 to farmers in farm equipment to industrialise agriculture. So despotic and antidemocratic.

Hang on a minute, equivalents of SpaceX and Starlink could have naturally grown out of NASA, it was the obvious place for them to come from but NASA did not show that innovation and nationalisation of them might dilute their abilities. For clarity I am not suggesting the innovation came from Musk, he has no science or engineering, his talents are grifting, showmanship and taking credit for other people's work, he is a natural figurehead though and seemed quite clear thinking until he lost his mind.

NASA has had it's funding cut year after year for decades. It's far easier to innovate when you have money to back up the r&d and testing.
- Not just funding cuts, but it was heavily politicized and had its direction changed every 4 years. You can’t plan long term like that. It needs to be a government agency but not at the whim of the president or congress.
- I wasnt discussing underlying cause, whatever the reason for stifled innovation in some fields possibly evident in NASA it is likely preferable not to pull independent labs into NASA that are having success in these areas.

That would be national socialism right?

I zi what you're doing there, and no.
Edgy!
No, nazis actually privatised a lot of formerly state-owned sectors of the economy
- They also nationalized other sectors. They were actually quite centrist economically.
Yes, but don"t say it to Musk's haters...
- Who doesn’t hate Musk these days?
  He’s pissed of everyone except the ones who want to be ruled by a technobro king.