In the past this at-cost dealing would have been considered monopolistic enough to force divestment (ie, almost exactly the same as Boeing and United Airlines divestment due to the Air Mail Act).
> Air Mail Act of 1934:
> This legislation prohibited the common ownership of airlines and aircraft manufacturers to prevent conflicts of interest and promote fair competition in the aviation industry.
> In the past this at-cost dealing would have been considered monopolistic enough to force divestment
I guess we'll see what happens.
As with most things monopoly related, the critical fight is over how to appropriately define the market. Presumably SpaceX would argue that Starlink is an ISP and that it just happens to use satellites to deliver its service.
And if that doesn't work, then it's a satellite internet provider, but competes with both LEO and GEO services.
If it ever goes to court, it'll be interesting to see how such an argument holds up.
For obvious reasons I think it's pretty safe to say we can count on at least the next four years of zero regulation or government scrutiny of any company Musk is involved in, monopoly-related or otherwise.
But you may have noticed companies like Boeing getting white-glove treatment from regulators.
You know, deciding that their competitor's cheaper aircraft should be subject to a 300% tariff. Not burdening them with too much scrutiny about whether that modified aircraft should keep the same type rating. Taking their word for it when they say every aircraft has 100% of the door bolts installed. If they have broken some regulations, maybe giving a $150 billion company a $250 million fine.
Not ceasing to regulate - just regulators with broad discretionary power exercising that discretion in line with the will of the politicians who appoint them.
Starlink is the most important military weapon in the world right now. Those civilian organizations have no say when state security is at hand. It's like disarming nuclear rockets because some green guys care about birds. Will not happen.
"National security" obviously gets significant concessions from regulators. That doesn't mean military and adjacent industries or significant industries and works are above the regulators, it just means the necessity of the activity and input from military and other interested parties would be duly taken into account by regulators.
That's not unique to SpaceX and I don't think that's wrong as such, although people argue that military interests in general get too much leeway.
Parent should have said "SpaceX", Starlink is just a subsidiary.
SpaceX has more military applications than Starshield alone. For example, SpaceX's assembly line will be pumping out (eventually) a rocket a day. That's the plan.
From a military perspective, Starship is supposed to be able to send 100+ people on long space trips. If that is instead to deliver troops to other parts of the planet, I'm sure hundreds could be packed in. Imagine a fast deploy with parachute capability for personnel and cargo, just as with planes, but with immense range and deploy speed.
You may wonder why, but aircraft carriers and their fleets are considered less usable as deploy platforms, due to increased vulnerability. If the US continues to withdraw from the world stage, its ability to deploy could be affected by a reduction in 'friendly' regional countries and thus leased bases. I don't see any issue with this now, but once a large conflict breaks out, who knows... and this could vastly enhance Starship or equiv as a deploy platform.
I'm sure some reading this will balk at "large war" and "never happen" and so on, but Starshield is an example of a platform for such a large conflict. So considering the use of Starship itself as a lightning speed, emergency deploy platform is important.
There are all sorts of gotchas, such as being shot down, but of course those same issues exist with planes or ships.
Frankly, with the state of AI, the close-to-real Android + military robots, along with drones, Starship would be best served by mass fly-over and deploy of 100k small drones, or hundreds of military robot platforms, or.. well, lots of things.
This really isn't about Starship of course. It's just that we've gotten to the point where this sort of platform is very usable. I can't imagine sending in a large-cost asset like this for general troop deploy, but I can for special ops, weapons platforms in low-risk flyovers, and a variety of other use cases.
Elon Musk was just appointed by Donald Trump as being in charge of firing half of the government. He won't likely do that. But any regulator who gets in his way?
Yeah, not many will volunteer for "the firing line."
I really don't know what Musk has been appointed to do and it's a laughably blatant conflict of interest, but conflicts of interest seem to be what the entire government is built on. Politicians involved with energy and military companies are involved in decisions to go to war, generals get lucrative consultancy jobs at military firms, congress makes billions of dollars insider trading, foreign aid somehow finds its way funneled through "charities" owned by the ruling class, politicians cosy with medical companies block real healthcare reform, etc.
Musk isn't anything new or different here. The idea that he'll just be above the law is fearmongering hyperbole though. Sure he'll get favorable treatment and be able to push his agenda to degrees well out of reach of us commoners. No more than if he'd just stayed in the shadows and bought his politicians and judges and bureaucrats and generals like a normal billionaire.
I follow the same reasoning as you. This is actually nothing really "new". Patronage from politicics is something that is publicly criticized but is quite common among politicians and business.
It's too bad no one in government will ever step up to undo the citizens united ruling. At least we didn't have legal-but-opaque bribery, prior. The difference is substantial when people can't report on where campaign financing comes from without someone first talking too loud about it in a public setting.
The good news, at least, is that Citizens United was only a legal ruling and can be overturned by another ruling. Laws are much harder to undue, with rulings we don't need anyone in the government to step up (other than judges trying the case).
Because I heard he was going to have some advisory or executive capacity on government operation. There's a significant conflict of interest there if he's running and owning these companies at the same time.
Its hard to determine a conflict of interest when the role isn't clear though, and the problem there is that everyone can really go off of what they heard through the grape vine.
If the role truly is advisory I wouldn't personally see that as a conflict of interest. Regulators are often asking for advise from those they are meant to regulate without it getting flagged as a conflict of interest (for better or worse).
> The idea that he'll just be above the law is fearmongering hyperbole though
Is it? If there is anything the 45th and the aftermath has shown is that there are people clearly above the law. And even without the 45th, Musk himself has escaped justice many many times - especially the SEC whose explicit orders he openly defied multiple times.
Yes I think it is, and I think the rhetoric around Trump is hyperbole and fearmongering too.
Not that you can't criticize them, I just don't see exaggeration being interesting or helpful there. Also I think caring about certain corruption or conflicts of interest when it happens to politicians one disagrees with is fairly easy to be seen as being divisive or politically motivated even if it's not. I thought that wheeling out the architects of the Iraq war to denounce Trump's corruption/incompetence/bad foreign policy/etc was particularly ironic and sad, for example, even if they might have been technically correct.
Musk isn't going to be immune to federal regulators. I'm sure he'll get the kinds of favors that come with buying politicians as all the rest of them get though.
> Yes I think it is, and I think the rhetoric around Trump is hyperbole and fearmongering too.
Well just reading through Project 2025 is very sobering. It's not like old times where what they wanted had to be read through the lines any more, it's right out in the open what they want to do - and even getting a quarter of their plans actually passed through is a very, very troubling perspective.
> I thought that wheeling out the architects of the Iraq war to denounce Trump's corruption/incompetence/bad foreign policy/etc was particularly ironic and sad, for example, even if they might have been technically correct.
A sad consequence of people no longer debating policy on a shared common ground based on facts, but on tribalism, lies and propaganda instead.
I shouldn't have brought up Trump, the subject never goes anywhere useful in an online debate. That was just my opinion, and other opinions and fears are not invalid.
> > I thought that wheeling out the architects of the Iraq war to denounce Trump's corruption/incompetence/bad foreign policy/etc was particularly ironic and sad, for example, even if they might have been technically correct.
> A sad consequence of people no longer debating policy on a shared common ground based on facts, but on tribalism, lies and propaganda instead.
Yep. When they do that it does make you wonder who shares common ground with whom, and who spreads lies and propaganda about what.
I’d say it’s just as likely that six months from now there will be a falling out, Musk will be called a pathetic loser, government agencies will be turned against him, etc.
If past behavior is any kind of indicator, it’s more likely than not. I would not be surprised if we see Musk doing a perp walk within 12 months.
For those who forgot, Musk joined Trump v1.0's advisory council in December 2016 [a], and resigned from it in June 2017 [b]. All of this played out once before.
Elon knows well enough to act as a supporting character. He can't run for presidency anyway given he's not a native, and no other political post would be interesting enough. There'll be no falling out.
And this is why we can't have nice, cheap things. Instead we usually get that "cost" pressure solved by giving it on a silver platter to worker-rights-leading China.
There has to be a better way to prevent abuses in the market without crippling it. But following from that, at what point did we assume this kind of (monopolistic) abuse would happen automatically anyways? I haven't seen it yet, so let's maybe hold off till it happens?
Maybe one day X will host all sorts of government-unapproved content on satellites that are free from US jurisdiction and control? @Elon, do this now, they'll come for you eventually.
it is a fascinating outcome when a vertically integrated monopoly is the cheapest option, and best consumer value. The challenge is figuring out if the firm is really providing the best value, or just a local minimum.
My understanding is Standard Oil provided good service for low prices in most cases. It's not always the case that monopolies provide super expensive or bad service.
> vertically integrated monopoly is the cheapest option
I would like to remind you that you can use google, gmail, google maps, google drive and a bunch of other services for free (and the best consumer value even if accounting for their data gathering).
Now that Starlink owner Musk effectively runs the US government from Trump's ear no divestment of any kind will happen that negatively impacts Mr. Musk
An actual answer aside, why are you focusing (it seems) on either WA or NV? I'm sure you have your reasons, but if it's a state-tax-rate based reason, it would be a poor choice to optimize for this based on the fact that you will, as a core premise to your decision, have no income.
There are a lot of cheaper places in california you could move to if you just wanted to get away from the COL of SF.
I don't know what your monthly spend is, but there are income levels where you'll see 0% capital gains at both the state and federal level. Also remember that you'll only pay the tax on the _gains_ (ie, taking your cost basis into account).
Moving out of a state for avoid a low-single-digit tax on _gains only_ seems like it may be an over-optimization, but you'll have to look at your specific situation.
RSUs are taxable on vesting, and California wants its piece of that, if any of the vesting happened while you were a resident or working in California. But after they vest, they're just stock, and when you sell stock, California considers the capital gains to be sourced to your state of domicile.
If the OP was being loose with terminology, and the 'RSUs' to sell already vested, there's no California tax due on sale if they've moved out of state before the sale.
That seems like a stretch based on this specific case, given that the only award was explicit damages (ie, a refund of funds already spent). No one ended up “ahead” here.
It’s because the positions that talent may not exist for (but is needed) isn’t necessarily as profitable (and can’t pay as much) as other industries under the same program.
Basing on salary alone would mean ~100% of visas go to tech talent in major cities, and every other profession is cast aside.
That’s not to say that ranking based on salary within an industry wouldn’t be a potential improvement. Or modifying caps to be industry based. There are definitely options here that could be a bit more surgical.
This is the kind of failure of expectations that Star Trek’s universal translator has set us up for.
As far as I know you’re right, a number of things either don’t translate, or are too contextual for real time translation.
I’d love to be proven wrong, but I think the underlying problem here isn’t necessarily the language itself, but differences in underlying mental models that the languages express.
> Also, make sure you tell them you are on TN status or they will happily wave you through on B1 which you won't know until you download your updated I94.
Bingo. I had the unfortunate experience of crossing after obtaining a renewal through USCIS, but before my original TN had expired.
Despite giving them all of documentation, including the I-797A and new I94, the agent entered me based on my old TN, which expired.... a couple days later.
> Air Mail Act of 1934: > This legislation prohibited the common ownership of airlines and aircraft manufacturers to prevent conflicts of interest and promote fair competition in the aviation industry.
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