No, Elon Musk can’t go more than a couple of days without making people talk about him.
Usually it is he himself, through bombastic declarations, who attracts the attention of the world media to his person. Last in order of time, the dispute with Sam Altman of OpenAI. First of all, it was Musk who denounced the ChatGPT company, which he said was guilty of having abandoned the open source and somewhat libertarian perspective of the beginning, in favor of a purely entrepreneurial perspective. The response from the OpenAI leaders arrived very punctually and bluntly. Who in a post published several emails in which Musk, when he was on the company’s board, appears not only to be aware of the company’s change of direction, but also happy to endorse it.
In the last few hours it wasn’t a post on X by the entrepreneur of South African origin that sparked the press, but an indiscretion from Reuters. According to Elon Musk’s SpaceX is building spy satellites for the United States.
Elon Musk and spy satellites
The sensational news was published exclusively by Reuters on Saturday 16 March.
The title of the article is already eloquent: “Elon Musk’s SpaceX is building a spy satellite network for the US intelligence agency.”
So Musk’s aerospace company is reportedly preparing a network of hundreds of spy satellites, under a $1.8 billion contract with a US intelligence agency. That’s according to five sources familiar with the program.
The Wall Street Journal had already spoken about the 1.8 billion dollars of economic commitment by an intelligence community to strengthen defense in February.
Starshield by NRO
More precisely, working on Elon Musk’s spy satellites would be Starshield, which we could define as the military variant of Starlink, created with the aim of creating global satellite Internet access in low latency broadband for commercial use.
The contract for the construction of spy satellites would therefore have been signed in 2021 by the SpaceX Starshield unit with the NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office. That is, the US Defense agency responsible for the construction and management of spy satellites.
Professional figures from the US Space Force and the CIA work at NRO, providing satellite images to the Pentagon and other US intelligence agencies.
The NRO did not comment on the Reuters report. But in a note he confirmed in a general way that he was working to “develop a sophisticated satellite system”. And to have collaborations “with other government agencies, companies, research institutions and nations.”
Also according to Reuters, on the spy satellites supplied by Elon Musk’s Starshield there will be sensors from another unspecified company.
Towards global surveillance
The plans demonstrate the Pentagon’s investment in low-Earth orbit satellite systems to support ground forces.
It is true that here we are in the military and not civil sphere, but the news of a network of spy satellites that Elon Musk is allegedly building for the USA is striking, a few days after the European Parliament approved the AI Act, which regulates the use of artificial intelligence in Europe. And with it the public surveillance systems.
The constellation of spy satellites will in fact be able to offer “the most persistent, pervasive and rapid coverage of activities on Earth.”
The sources claim that “the program will significantly advance the ability of the US government and military to rapidly locate potential targets anywhere on the globe.”
E one of the five sources spoken to by Reuters even commented: “No one will be able to escape it.”
Starlink and tensions with the Biden government
In the concluding paragraphs of the note, after talking about the commercial relations between the Pentagon and SpaceX, Reuters recalls the friction between Musk and the Biden administration caused by Starlink.
In summary, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, Musk made his satellite Internet technology available to the country.
The first controversies arose because the service would also be used for offensive military purposes. But that aside, Reuters explains that “the authority over Starlink in a war zone by Musk, and not the US military, has created tension between him and the US government.”
