Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule, Told Pentagon He Spoke to Putin Directly

That's easy...the US needs to asset imminent domain on starlink. You don't fucking blackmail the government.

And SpaceX as a whole. It's entirely government funded anyway. Should have kept that money in NASA where it belonged. Fortunately, there's an easy way to put it all right back.
(Also, archive link of top article here: https://archive.is/H6rzo )
- not entirely government funded, but enough that, if they withdraw funding, it would totally collapse.
  the entire argument that “private companies do it cheaper” is mostly because they cut corners, skirt regulations, and screw over employees to do business on the cheap. then, we find out there may be massive security breaches like, oh, chatting with Putin and god knows who else...
- We would've never gotten propulsive landing so quickly purely through NASA. See how far behind the SLS was. And SpaceX's funding comes mostly from private equity.
- NASA was never gonna figure out reusable rockets.
Or they should've never left this to the private sector if there was going to be a strategic component to it. Now they're at the mercy of an unstable foreign national, who is himself beholden to a bunch of foreign investors.
- Turns out unregulated capitalism might be slightly at odds with democracy.
- The most insane part is that they never even entered into a contract with Starlink to provide service. Starlink is the backbone of Ukraine's communications infrastructure, and it's shocking that the DoD and the Ukraine Armed Forces never thought "hey we should get a contract with Musk so we can ensure he keeps Starlink available throughout the war". For such a critical service, they were content with dealing with Starlink directly and having Elon subsidize it personally, giving him a large degree of control over one of the most vital components of Ukrainian communications, rather than what they eventually did by going through the DoD to negotiate a contract with Elon using taxpayer dollars
- Yep this. They privatize everything then complain when it doesn't go their way.
You don't fucking blackmail the government.
Tell that to scientology.
- Lol no kidding.
You don’t fucking blackmail the government
lol, only he obviously is, so....
And I guarantee he was long before starlink - the riches man on earth doesn't get that way and stay that way without owning at least a handful of politicians (and now his own media outlet of which he has absolute control and millions of existing followers ready to worship his every word).
I genuinely don't understand how anyone can still look at anything this man does and think it's benign, or worse, clueless..
- With the rich, never attribute to stupidity what you can attribute to malice.

Time to revoke any clearances he has and refuse to renew any contracts with the government.

You know, it seems like something like this should be illegal. Maybe name it something like the Logan Act.
- Great name! I, too, enjoy some Wolverine.

On the phone, Musk said that he was looking at his laptop and could see “the entire war unfolding” through a map of Starlink activity. “This was, like, three minutes before he said, ‘Well, I had this great conversation with Putin,’ ” the senior defense official told me. “And we were, like, ‘Oh, dear, this is not good.’ ”

It's like the Elon India Tea Company. Strange to think we've got so many individuals that rival any sort of elected officials and that our government is becoming aware of this. Elon in particular seems to have the US over several barrels, space, battlefield communications, recharge stations, and now Twitter and AI possibly from the bottom of a k hole.

Wild, also: I forget how good the New Yorker is. That whole article was fascinating. I feel like I learned a lot and it was interesting.

Boy if only the pentagon had a way to deal with rogue actors, I wonder what they’re in charge of

Sounds like the octagon didnt get it done, so we might as well give another shape a try.
- Musk's head is the shape of a dick.

So he is.. breaking the US law.

Hahaha, this person thinks laws apply to the wealthy.
- Who don't go out of their way to annoy the other powerful and rich.
Yes. If he talks with Putin about "government policy" or "international relations" then he has to register with the US government as doing so.
It's against the law to privately speak with foreign nations about those categories. It may put you at odds with US policy or maybe you dont see the whole picture, so it's better in the US eyes to ban foreign diplomacy by private citizens.
- 🤔 What about Dennis Rodman when he would talk with Kim Jong Il?
  Ooh, he used to talk to Putin too, didn't he? I wonder if Russia and North Korea were enacting some long-game plan against us.

Then the question everyone should ask him on Twitter/X is... "Are you an agent of foreign principal?"

he is an agent of capital principle
- no he isn't.. he has only ONE principle.. it is spelled E - L - O - N..

of course Saruman called Sauron

How can we call our system a democracy when one unelected man can hold so much power?

Look at Rupert Murdoch. He unquestionably holds more power than Musk and has been at it for a long time. Democracy is an illusion, since people are very easily influenced by the media they consume.
- Better education that emphasizes skepticism and critical thinking would do so much to fight the influence of media.

If hitler was alive he'd boast he personally spoke to him as well as if it was some kind of achievement

Ein reich? Ein Volk? Ein Führer?
Interesting.

“arrest me for espionage and/or treason, please"

They can't arrest him. In the U.S., we have a wealth threshold above which there is no accountability.
The only reason trump is being held accountable is because he isn't a billionaire. If you count his debts, he probably isn't even a millionaire.
His son-in-law Jared sold secrets to the Saudis for billions, but now he's a billionaire so he cannot be held accountable for being a spy and a traitor. That's how we do things in the U.S. The wealthy cannot be held accountable here.