• Tag Archives Elon Musk
  • Former Bush Speechwriter Says Feds Should Plan to Seize Starlink From Elon Musk

    Last week reports emerged that Elon Musk was growing tired of providing free Starlink—a satellite internet system operated by SpaceX—to the Ukrainian government.

    “The Starlink-Ukraine honeymoon period appears to be at an end: SpaceX reportedly wants the US to begin picking up the tab for more of its war-zone services,” reported The Register.

    On October 7 Musk claimed on Twitter SpaceX had already eaten $80 million in costs for the operation, a price tag that is expected to hit $100 million by the end of the year.

    “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in a September letter that was obtained by CNN.

    That Musk no longer wanted SpaceX to pay for critical satellite services in Ukraine and was asking the Pentagon to foot the bill didn’t sit well with many, especially since Musk doesn’t appear to be a fan of the war in Ukraine, which has led to accusations that he’s a Putin stooge.

    Musk this week announced that SpaceX has withdrawn its request for the Pentagon to fund Starlink in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that it has “held discussions about funding for the company’s Starlink,” suggesting that perhaps some agreement is being reached.

    Some have suggested a simpler solution, however. On Monday, journalist and former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum said the federal government should be laying the groundwork to seize Starlink from Musk.

    “It was always unreasonable, and is becoming unwise, to expect [Musk] to provide Internet to Ukraine for free forever. Western allies should pay,” said Frum, who is currently an editor at The Atlantic and an MSNBC contributor. “And US should have a plan ready to nationalize Starlink fast if Musk cuts off Ukraine’s connection to advance his political agenda.”

    Frum then shared a link to an article on the National Constitution Center, which explored Woodrow Wilson’s order nationalizing the entire US rail system during World War I.

    “There’s abundant precedent for US government seizure of critical infrastructure during wars or national emergencies,” wrote Frum. “Of course, reasonable compensation must be paid, per the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.”

    Frum is correct that it’s unreasonable to expect SpaceX to indefinitely provide free internet service to Ukraine. He’s also correct that there’s ample historical examples of the federal government nationalizing critical infrastructure during emergencies and wars.

    Wilson did seize private railroads during World War I. He also used the Sedition Act to imprison thousands of Americans who had the temerity to use “disloyal or abusive” language about the government or the war. Wilson also drafted nearly 3 million Americans into World War I, a conflict he campaigned on staying out of.

    None of these actions are just simply because the government did them previously, but they do illustrate an important lesson: many of the most egregious violations of civil liberties have occurred during wars and government-declared “emergencies.”

    Wilson was hardly the only president to use a war emergency to justify blatant violations of civil liberties. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, seized newspapers, and arrested editors. Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered tens of thousands of Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II (as well as smaller numbers of Italian and German Americans). Harry Truman seized the nation’s private steel mills during a labor spat. Under George W. Bush, the CIA tortured detainees.

    In every case, these actions were justified by public officials seeking to achieve a “greater good,” and it’s not hard to see how these rationalizations work, especially during wars. Winning becomes the goal, and eventually the pursuit of that end justifies virtually any means—so long as they help realize that goal.

    Frum offers a case in point. He’s advocating seizing the property of a private American citizen to help win a war the United States is not even an active participant in. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Frum that the precedent he cites, unjust as it was, occurred while America was actually fighting in World War I. Furthermore, it was only done after Congress had passed the Army Appropriations Act, which gave the president war powers to take over the nation’s transportation systems.

    Frum might get many things wrong on policy, but he’s a smart man (not to mention a talented writer); so I think he knows all this. His error is that he’s putting ends before means, which is a serious moral mistake.

    The bottom line is Starlink belongs to Elon Musk, not the US government, which has no right to it. Plunder, even when it is “legal,” doesn’t become just when the government does it.


    Jon Miltimore

    Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

    Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.


  • ‘Freeloading’ Elon Musk to Pay Largest Federal Tax Bill in History, an Estimated $8.3 Billion

    Elon Musk made a bold claim on Twitter on Tuesday. The Tesla founder said he would “pay more taxes than any American in history this year.”

    Is the claim true? Only the IRS knows for certain who the largest taxpayer in US history is, but Forbes says Musk appears to be right.

    “The eccentric billionaire (and the world’s richest person) likely owes the federal government at least $8.3 billion for 2021,” Forbes reports.

    Business Insider projects Musk’s tax bill is even higher when state taxes are included.

    “Taxes on his stock, nearly a billion in Net Investment Income Tax, and the billions he likely owes California could add up to about $12 billion in total,” report Jason Lalljee and Andy Kiersz.

    CNBC, meanwhile, figured Musk’s total tax bill was even higher—$15 billion.

    The bulk of Musk’s tax bill stems from the nearly $13 billion in Tesla stock sold as of December 13, which is even larger than the record $10.2 billion worth of Amazon stock Jeff Bezos sold last year.

    Whatever Musk’s tax bill ends up being, it’s worth examining the context of his claim. Musk was not bragging that he had the largest tax bill in history; on the contrary, he was responding to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who—somewhat unfathomably—lashed out at Musk for not paying his fair share of taxes.

    “Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else,” Warren tweeted.

    You read that correctly. Warren, the progressive lawmaker from Massachusetts, called Musk a freeloader. It’s possible that Warren didn’t know that Musk is set to pay more in taxes than any American—perhaps human being—in history, but it’s more likely she simply does not care and is comfortable peddling the fiction that Musk isn’t paying taxes. Warren made this clear in subsequent remarks after Musk had responded to the Senator.

    “He’s the richest guy in the world, and he just doesn’t want to pay taxes,” Warren said. “That’s what it’s all about for me.”

    She continued:

    “I gotta say, on behalf of every school teacher who pays taxes, on behalf of every waitress who pays taxes, on behalf of every American citizen who goes out and works for a living and pays taxes …that’s just fundamentally wrong. We have a broken tax system that lets Elon Musk freeload off everyone else, and it needs to stop.”

    Warren’s claim that Musk is a “freeloader” is preposterous, of course. Taking the lowest estimate on what Musk is expected to pay, he’ll cough up more in taxes than the entire state of Massachusetts collected in sales and use taxes through the first half of 2021—from its 7 million residents.

    Moreover, unlike Warren, who collects a salary from the government, Musk earned much of his wealth by creating value. Tesla employs nearly 80,000 people who’ve built no fewer than 623,000 energy-efficient cars in 2021 alone. Its market cap is nearly $1 trillion, which has made untold numbers of Tesla employees and shareholders wealthy. Warren, on the other hand, creates nothing. Every dollar of her $174,000 salary—and the money she pays her staff with—comes from funds confiscated from taxpayers. Every dollar she authorizes to be spent was taken from someone else who earned it.

    Musk’s success should be applauded, but instead Warren—the true freeloader—accuses him of “freeloading” and believes he should be paying more.

    What really appears to bother Warren is that Musk has so much. In other words, it’s a politics rooted in envy.

    Envy is considered one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and for good reason. It’s a corrosive disposition that harms both individuals and societies. The celebrated philosopher Immanuel Kant described envy as,

    “…a propensity to view the well-being of others with distress, even though it does not detract from one’s own. [It is] a reluctance to see our own well-being overshadowed by another’s because the standard we use to see how well off we are is not the intrinsic worth of our own well-being but how it compares with that of others. [It] aims, at least in terms of one’s wishes, at destroying others’ good fortune.”

    The pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus (c. 460 BC – c. 370 BC)—in a wonderfully libertarian quote—once warned of the danger of envy and purpose of the law.

    “[Just] laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife,” he wrote.

    Strife is precisely what Warren and those who share her philosophy are sowing, and it’s clear she and others view Musk’s good fortune with distress. If that’s not envy, I don’t know what is.

    Jon Miltimore


    Jon Miltimore

    Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

    Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.