Seems to me that Starlink is de facto an organ of the US government at this point. Should just be nationalized so a demonstrably unstable foreigner doesn't control something of such vital importance.
The Starshield portion of Starlink is already controlled by the government. It was Starshield that restricted access to Ukraine, and the decision reportedly came from the White House.
OP's article of course is about spectrum allocation in the US and potential trade retaliation, which isn't all that related to Musk's control of Starlink.
Current reporting is that Musk approached the White House with the idea of slowing down Starshield.
And the situation here is that Musk's instability is causing Europe to want to not depend on Starlink, and by extension not depend on the US. So now we're using other organs of the state to essentially coerce them into using a system that is de facto controlled by an unstable foreigner, but is part of the US defense apparatus.
Current reporting is that Musk approached the White House with the idea. Of course in reality the White House holds all ultimate responsibility, but that doesn't mean Musk is without guilt (especially if he proposed the idea for... some reason...?)
The United States has been in a war with Iran since 1979. Since then they have been promising "Death to America" all the while funding and supporting our enemies.
Since then the United States has dismantled their Navy systematically several times.
At the moment they are
- Blockaded.
- Entire leadership dead.
- Major infrastructure bombed to rubble
- Inability to project power beyond a few random pot shots at neighbors that aren't even the US.
- Proxies neutered or entirely destroyed in Syria and Iraq.
- De facto leader still in hiding and afraid for his life even as I type this.
- Unable to field a single ship in their own home port.
Man if this is winning I wanna know what losing is.
The problem is, if you tell everyone that you are a superpower, but then go on to not only not achieve your strategic goals (during a conflict of your choosing), but get to an unconfortable stalemate (that you cannot forcibly break) where you get to the point that you have to throw allies under the bus (not just Ukraine).. that's losing.
I was born in 1979. We have always been at odds with Iran and have had a few skirmishes, but this notion that we have been at war with them for 47 years only became a thing several months ago. There was never a time we were "at war" with them until Trump started one. You should stop consuming propaganda and learn more history.
If I understand this correctly the Europeans hope that by banning the spectrum where Starlink operates, they will spur the development of home grown operators that provide the same service ... is that realistic?
Even if we don't spur the development of home grown operators (and IMO launch on the scale of Starlink is somewhat unrealistic any time soon), it will at least prevent us getting get another incidental dependency on US systems which we can be threatened with loss of access to at any point.
The internal cost per tonne to low Earth orbit differs
vastly between SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Ariane’s best offer:
Vehicle Cost / tonne
Falcon 9 (booster recovery) ~$2 million
Ariane 64 ~$5 million
Starship (projected) <$500,000
To meaningfully compete, European launch providers must try to match these costs, then spend a decade putting these vehicles into orbit. That’s no easy task.
It is, there are lots of European launch companies that will have their first launches in 2027 and all target cheap launch services which is the key to Starlink. Isar Aerospace has already put a payload in orbit, but they are only one of many.
Awww... more threats from Usania. This will definitely help... the EU move to more independence. More and more governments are dropping US made stuff as much as possible and pushing for local alternatives... way to go!
It's the same tech but after Musk took flack for making a decision on Ukraine's military use, they split off a portion for the US government to control.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”
The USSR would have taken over all of Europe, not just Eastern. What would have happened to the former British and French empires? Presumably they'd have been turned communist, but would their struggles for independence have gone the same way?
The Manhattan project would have been announced before it went anywhere, undermined during development and produced no real result. Japan would not have been nuked, but also would not have been invaded and the Pacific theatre would have in general developed in a completely different way. Without the American nuclear arsenal, the world may have skipped the cold war and nukes, or perhaps other states would have made them and used them in a heavy mutual bombardment without restraint.
Eventually in Europe, glasnost and perestroika would still have happened, and the USSR would still have fallen; but the geopolitical and economic importance of the USA would be little different to that of Brazil.
> European companies face “devastating” retaliation from Washington if Brussels presses ahead with plans to restrict American rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX from parts of the European market, the US ambassador to the EU has warned.
> Andrew Puzder’s warning comes after the European Commission this year proposed reserving part of its spectrum band that allows smartphones to connect directly to satellites for European players. That would limit the frequencies for Chinese and US companies such as SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite network.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.
Eh, this seems like a fairly even tit-for-tat, for once.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.
Would this even be "devastating"? Would any of them been able to sell in the US anyway, given the position Starlink is in? I see occasional headlines that Starlink is forcing out other US providers, from the US, but even without that kind of thing going on, this doesn't even feel like much of a threat.
And yet companies are wondering why the EU is moving to build their own tech sector, separate from the US. Another reason why.
And the big winner of this is China. I heard China is building its own starlink and I would not be surprised they will offer verifiable guarantees to the EU on "spying" should the EU want to use China's version.
China should be sending Trump all kinds of Thank You notes. Trump already gave China the lead in Medical Research, Trump is helping China to take over Chip Development and he just started handing China the lead in AI.
You get what you vote for. At least the US will be the leader in Bible Research.
Seems to me that Starlink is de facto an organ of the US government at this point. Should just be nationalized so a demonstrably unstable foreigner doesn't control something of such vital importance.
The Starshield portion of Starlink is already controlled by the government. It was Starshield that restricted access to Ukraine, and the decision reportedly came from the White House.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...
OP's article of course is about spectrum allocation in the US and potential trade retaliation, which isn't all that related to Musk's control of Starlink.
> and the decision reportedly came from the White House.
That looks like outdated information. The request to slow Starshield came directly from Musk.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...
Current reporting is that Musk approached the White House with the idea of slowing down Starshield.
And the situation here is that Musk's instability is causing Europe to want to not depend on Starlink, and by extension not depend on the US. So now we're using other organs of the state to essentially coerce them into using a system that is de facto controlled by an unstable foreigner, but is part of the US defense apparatus.
That is what sources told The Telegraph[0]
[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...
The idea of a drug addicted undocumented immigrant being in charge of our space program and sat comms does seem incredibly unwise.
who stopped you from catching rockets and sending up thousands of sats? can only rage and take, never make. Typical.
One day Elon will notice you!
Not everybody inherits millions of dollars from daddy.
Unfortunately Trump is worse than Musk. And it's Trump who's to blame for the Ukraine speed restrictions.
Current reporting is that Musk approached the White House with the idea. Of course in reality the White House holds all ultimate responsibility, but that doesn't mean Musk is without guilt (especially if he proposed the idea for... some reason...?)
You think Trump wouldn't immediately promote Musk to General?
I would be a bit surprised, actually, just because they did have a giant public spat around the end of Musk's weird temp job in DOGE.
He would if he could. And let's not give him any ideas. Musk can do enough damage as it is.
I thought it was Starshield that was restricted, not Starlink, which was already restricted like all civilian tech?
Europe is putting economic restrictions on Starlink; the technical restrictions the US placed on Starshield are unrelated.
Nobody is afraid of the US anymore. You lost a war with Iran and they did not even put forward a Navy or an Air Force...
That doesn't make their treatment of other countries go away.
The United States has been in a war with Iran since 1979. Since then they have been promising "Death to America" all the while funding and supporting our enemies.
Since then the United States has dismantled their Navy systematically several times.
At the moment they are
- Blockaded.
- Entire leadership dead.
- Major infrastructure bombed to rubble
- Inability to project power beyond a few random pot shots at neighbors that aren't even the US.
- Proxies neutered or entirely destroyed in Syria and Iraq.
- De facto leader still in hiding and afraid for his life even as I type this.
- Unable to field a single ship in their own home port.
Man if this is winning I wanna know what losing is.
> Inability to project power beyond a few random pot shots at neighbors that aren't even the US.
This is a very funny way of saying “has de facto control of one of the world’s most important shipping lanes”.
Nobody said Iran was winning.
The problem is, if you tell everyone that you are a superpower, but then go on to not only not achieve your strategic goals (during a conflict of your choosing), but get to an unconfortable stalemate (that you cannot forcibly break) where you get to the point that you have to throw allies under the bus (not just Ukraine).. that's losing.
I don't think anyone in Ukraine is losing sleep over Iran getting bombed.
brent crude futures are trading above 109$/barrel right now. America didn't want that to happen, Iran did. They won that one.
Note that the comment you’re replying to does not claim Iran is winning.
You're wrong about intervention in Iran, it started far earlier, with the coup to Mossadegh
That's actually a fair point.
I was born in 1979. We have always been at odds with Iran and have had a few skirmishes, but this notion that we have been at war with them for 47 years only became a thing several months ago. There was never a time we were "at war" with them until Trump started one. You should stop consuming propaganda and learn more history.
"We've always been at war with Eurasia." - Republicans
Not a Republican. They tend to pussy out instead of getting the job done. Not a fan.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1989/may/air-view...
I agree. History is important. What would you call this?
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
https://archive.is/9GrWd
If I understand this correctly the Europeans hope that by banning the spectrum where Starlink operates, they will spur the development of home grown operators that provide the same service ... is that realistic?
Even if we don't spur the development of home grown operators (and IMO launch on the scale of Starlink is somewhat unrealistic any time soon), it will at least prevent us getting get another incidental dependency on US systems which we can be threatened with loss of access to at any point.
The europeans reserve strategic resources so that the can manage supply chain risk, since they consider the US one.
The US (dependably) proves them right, by threatening their supply lines.
Of course, why wouldn't it? There's nothing unique about SpaceX's sattelites, or about putting them in orbit.
https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/these-are-the-six-european-altern...
The internal cost per tonne to low Earth orbit differs vastly between SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Ariane’s best offer:
To meaningfully compete, European launch providers must try to match these costs, then spend a decade putting these vehicles into orbit. That’s no easy task.It is, there are lots of European launch companies that will have their first launches in 2027 and all target cheap launch services which is the key to Starlink. Isar Aerospace has already put a payload in orbit, but they are only one of many.
Awww... more threats from Usania. This will definitely help... the EU move to more independence. More and more governments are dropping US made stuff as much as possible and pushing for local alternatives... way to go!
It is the same starlink that was disabled on request of either WH or Musk to bully Ukraine.
That's Starshield, which is not under Musk's control. Reportedly the WH did make the decision.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...
It's the same tech but after Musk took flack for making a decision on Ukraine's military use, they split off a portion for the US government to control.
> Ambassador Andrew Puzder warns about ‘devastating’ retaliation if Brussels goes ahead with plans to limit spectrum access for non-EU companies
Please do.
The more the US shows that it is an enemy to Europe the better.
I hope the leaders on this side of the pond grow cojones and start to treat the US and its companies as a threat to EU and the countries within.
https://archive.is/9GrWd
Ban Teslas in Europe then. Being selective works both ways.
Not a bad idea - could couple it with further reducing European tariffs on Chinese EVs, which already outsell Tesla there.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”
Devastated companies can’t buy US products.
So go on and hit your exports again
I wonder what history would be like if Trump had been president during WW2.
Mein Deutsch waere viel besser gewesen...
The USSR would have taken over all of Europe, not just Eastern. What would have happened to the former British and French empires? Presumably they'd have been turned communist, but would their struggles for independence have gone the same way?
The Manhattan project would have been announced before it went anywhere, undermined during development and produced no real result. Japan would not have been nuked, but also would not have been invaded and the Pacific theatre would have in general developed in a completely different way. Without the American nuclear arsenal, the world may have skipped the cold war and nukes, or perhaps other states would have made them and used them in a heavy mutual bombardment without restraint.
Eventually in Europe, glasnost and perestroika would still have happened, and the USSR would still have fallen; but the geopolitical and economic importance of the USA would be little different to that of Brazil.
The UK would most likely be speaking German now. Possibly even the US.
> European companies face “devastating” retaliation from Washington if Brussels presses ahead with plans to restrict American rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX from parts of the European market, the US ambassador to the EU has warned.
> Andrew Puzder’s warning comes after the European Commission this year proposed reserving part of its spectrum band that allows smartphones to connect directly to satellites for European players. That would limit the frequencies for Chinese and US companies such as SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite network.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.
Eh, this seems like a fairly even tit-for-tat, for once.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.
Would this even be "devastating"? Would any of them been able to sell in the US anyway, given the position Starlink is in? I see occasional headlines that Starlink is forcing out other US providers, from the US, but even without that kind of thing going on, this doesn't even feel like much of a threat.
And yet companies are wondering why the EU is moving to build their own tech sector, separate from the US. Another reason why.
And the big winner of this is China. I heard China is building its own starlink and I would not be surprised they will offer verifiable guarantees to the EU on "spying" should the EU want to use China's version.
China should be sending Trump all kinds of Thank You notes. Trump already gave China the lead in Medical Research, Trump is helping China to take over Chip Development and he just started handing China the lead in AI.
You get what you vote for. At least the US will be the leader in Bible Research.