When Elon Musk first set up Tesla’s factory in China, he appeared to have the upper hand. He gained access to top leaders and secured policy changes that benefited Tesla. He also got workers accustomed to long hours and fewer protections, after clashing with U.S. regulators over labor conditions at his California plant. The Shanghai […]
Read MoreTag: Starlink Satellite Constellation (SpaceX)
Tesla’s Pivot to China Saved Musk. It Also Binds Him to Beijing.
When Elon Musk unveiled the first Chinese-made Teslas in Shanghai in 2020, he went off script and started dancing. Peeling off his jacket, he flung it across the stage in a partial striptease. Mr. Musk had reason to celebrate. A few years earlier, with Tesla on the brink of failure, he had bet on China, […]
Read MoreTaiwan Is Building a Satellite Network Without Elon Musk
In Taiwan, the government is racing to do what no country or even company has been able to: build an alternative to Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. Starlink has allowed militaries, power plants and medical workers to maintain crucial online connections when primary infrastructure has failed in emergencies, […]
Read MoreIntelligence About Russia Puts Focus on New U.S. Satellite Push
Hours after the news broke on Wednesday that the United States had picked up worrisome intelligence about Russia’s capacity to strike American satellites, the Pentagon sent a missile-tracking system into orbit, part of a vast new effort to bolster the military’s growing presence in space. The timing was coincidental. But it underscored how concerns about […]
Read MoreThe New Space Race Is Causing New Pollution Problems
The high-altitude chase started over Cape Canaveral on Feb. 17, 2023, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched. Thomas Parent, a NASA research pilot, was flying a WB-57 jet when the rocket ascended past the right wing — leaving him mesmerized before he hit the throttle to accelerate. For roughly an hour, Mr. Parent dove […]
Read MoreHow Astronomers Are Saving Astronomy From Satellites — For Now
In December 2020, astronomers documented a burst of highly energetic light in one of the most distant galaxies ever observed. But less than a year later, the paper’s claims lay in limbo. Other scientists said it had merely been a passing satellite. “I was a bit sad that the gamma ray burst turned out to […]
Read MoreThe White House May Condemn Musk, but the Government Is Addicted to Him
These are only the latest examples of why the federal government has no viable way to break up with Mr. Musk, at least as long as the United States decides it is going to continue space exploration and deter its biggest superpower rivals. It may denounce him and declare that all Americans should reject his […]
Read MoreElon Musk’s Savior Complex
In his biography of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow writes that Hamilton “always had to fight the residual sadness of the driven man.” That sentence has stayed with me because I’ve also noticed that there can be something sad about extremely ambitious people — like they’re striving furiously to fill a hole that was carved into […]
Read MoreWalter Isaacson on Elon Musk’s Competing Identities
For two years, Walter Isaacson embedded himself with Elon Musk to research his biography of the world’s richest man. Revelations from the book, which will be released on Tuesday, have already generated headlines: the psychological scars Mr. Musk carries from the way his father treated him as a child; his decision to limit Ukrainian access […]
Read MoreElon Musk Refused to Let Ukraine Use Starlink for Drone Attack on Russian Fleet
Elon Musk foiled an attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet last year by refusing to let Ukraine use his satellite network to guide its drones, Mr. Musk has acknowledged, provoking a furious response from a top official in Kyiv and renewing questions about the global power wielded by a multibillionaire businessman. Ukraine’s military forces have […]
Read MoreElon Musk Acknowledges Withholding Starlink Service to Thwart Ukrainian Attack
Elon Musk has acknowledged that he denied satellite internet service in order to prevent a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian naval fleet last year, prompting an angry response from a Ukrainian official. The Starlink satellite internet service, which is operated by Mr. Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, has been a digital lifeline in Ukraine since […]
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