Governments are questioning Elon Musk’s Starlink power, but are too scared to openly criticize him

As is by now well known, Starlink has become integral to the Ukrainian war effort—“the blood of our entire communication infrastructure now,” as Ukrainian digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov told the Times—which has put SpaceX boss Elon Musk in a curious position of power, able to affect military strategy with the restrictions he decides to impose. As previously reported, concerns over Musk’s China business ties have also led Taiwan to look for other options when considering backup connectivity solutions.

What’s particularly interesting about the new article is that multiple European and Middle Eastern governments have been discussing Starlink with U.S. officials, with some expressing concern over Musk’s power over the system—though they reportedly won’t openly criticize him, “for fear of alienating” him.

Musk is clearly doing a lot right here, as evidenced by how much he annoyed the Iranian authorities by giving pro-democracy activists access to Starlink there. But the concerns over his mercurial nature and questionable allegiances are also of course merited, especially given the erratic decisions Musk has taken at the helm of Twitter/X.

It’s one thing to lament Twitter’s demise and scoff at Musk’s terrible branding choices—the latest of which is making X’s tagline “Blaze your glory,” which sounds like a misremembered Bon Jovi citation—and quite another to realize that the same mind can make life-or-death geopolitical decisions, and has governments scared to openly question him. Truly extraordinary.

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David Meyer

NEWSWORTHY

SEC Coinbase demands. According to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission asked his crypto exchange to drop all cryptocurrencies apart from Bitcoin, before suing it. “They said, we’re not going to explain it to you, you need to delist every asset other than Bitcoin,” Armstrong told the Financial Times. “We really didn’t have a choice at that point; delisting every asset other than Bitcoin, which by the way is not what the law says, would have essentially meant the end of the crypto industry in the U.S.” he said.

iPhone upgrade. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has an update on Apple’s upcoming iPhone 15 range—the standard models will apparently get the “Dynamic Island” in lieu of the camera notch, while the Pro models will be made with a new molding technology that allows for significantly thinner bezels. Apart from that, expect the usual better cameras and snappier chipsets, along with USB-C all around.  

Google concessions. Italy’s antitrust authority is reportedly satisfied with concessions Google has proposed to end a case around the portability of user data. Reuters reports the company will make it easier for users to extract their data from its services, and has also promised to release a tool that other platforms will be able to use to access user data held by Alphabet services.

ON OUR FEED

“The legality of [Worldcoin’s data] collection seems questionable, as do the conditions for storing biometric data.”

—A spokesperson for the French data protection authority CNIL tells TechCrunch that it’s looking into Sam Altman’s scan-your-eyeballs-to-get-some-crypto Worldcoin identification scheme.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Apple is taking no chances ahead of its $3,500 Vision Pro launch and has issued top secret instructions to testing developers, by Eleanor Pringle  

Kanye West’s account reinstated on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, by Bloomberg

Elon Musk hasn’t damaged Tesla’s brand among its customers—just his own, by Christiaan Hetzner

Airlines slow to take off on cloud tech, but it’s not too late to upgrade, by John Kell

Inside the brain of the billionaire visionary: narcissism, risk, and disordered personality traits, by Frederick Kaufman

BEFORE YOU GO

Disney’s DVD decision. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be the last Disney movie to see a DVD and Blu-ray release in Australia, after the company decided to end physical sales there. 7News.com.au reports that retailers will be able to keep selling existing stock of previously released titles, but once those are sold, die-hard disc fans will need to turn to international sellers.

“Almost no one I know in real life buys physical; the physical ‘collectors’ online are a very, very small bubble,” said the Australian movie reviewer Dave Lee. “It’s been dire straits out here for a while. This has been a long time coming.”