The Elon Musk company you should be worried about right now

The next phase of Elon Musk’s plan to entangle his companies with the workings of the federal government is well underway. That entails not only President Donald Trump’s photo op with a Tesla in front of the White House but also, surprisingly, the future of your internet connection. More specifically, Musk is making moves that could change the way millions of Americans access the internet by boosting Starlink, the satellite-based internet company operated by his company, SpaceX, of which he is the founder, CEO, and major shareholder. Starlink and other space-based internet projects work by beaming internet service from satellites in orbit down to Earth’s surface, as opposed to wired broadband internet, which typically relies on fiber-optic cable. Satellite internet’s major advantage is that, with a few exceptions, it can work almost anywhere on the planet. Its drawbacks — including slow speeds, high latency, and spotty reliability — mean that fiber internet is better for the vast majority of people right now. Recently, the Commerce Department said it plans to rewrite the rules of a $42 billion high-speed internet initiative in a way that would benefit Starlink. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) meanwhile granted Starlink a waiver that will make its new service, which lets phones connect to satellites, more powerful, as satellite competitors urged the agency to rein in Musk’s company, which they say is “anticompetitive.” “Elon Musk has been pretty cavalier about his ability to turn on or turn off Starlink to influence policy decisions,” said Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, referring to a series of recent posts on X from Musk about cutting off Starlink access in Ukraine. In addition to hacking away at the federal government in his unelected position as the head of DOGE, Musk could also become the single individual who is “the dominant force in telecom policy,” according to Blair Levin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and former chief of staff at the FCC. What’s more, the US telecommunications system is key to national security, and Musk’s business interests might not always line up with Washington’s. “We have never before had a situation where the owner of a major communications company is inside the government. This is a very unusual situation,” Levin said. “It’s very troubling.”