The Price of Faustian Bargains with Trump

A public fight between the Trump administration and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk over who curtailed Ukraine's access to a military-grade version of Starlink shows how dependent even the world's richest man is on Washington, according to Time commentators Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian. Musk says the military and ultimately President Donald Trump set any limits. Trump denies interfering, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says SpaceX decided, and the Wall Street Journal and CBS News reported Musk made the call.

Sonnenfeld and Tian note that a fifth of SpaceX revenue comes from federal agencies, its satellites need government approval, and a possible Tesla merger hinges on regulators. They say Musk chose ambiguity over open defiance or submission. They argue the murkiness may serve a push to force Ukraine into a settlement, which could embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin toward NATO members and signal weakness to other adversaries.

The authors liken this to Putin's bargain with Russian oligarchs: in July 2000 he told 21 of them to stay out of politics. Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky were pushed into exile, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Time’s reporting. Read the full story at Time →