# OPINION: Trump vs Musk — the breakup threatening America's technological edge

> It is hard to find in recent history a falling-out between two personalities as rich in potential consequences as the one between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. These two men — the president of the United States and the world's wealthiest person — built together one of the most improbable and influential power couples of the contemporary era. And they nearly destroyed everything o

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Note
- Published: 2026-06-27
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/billet-trump-vs-musk-la-rupture-qui-menace-l-avance-technologique-americaine

## Key takeaways

- The feud erupted over Trump's federal spending bill, the "One Big Beautiful Bill," with Musk calling it an abomination and Trump threatening to cut his subsidies and suggesting he return to South Africa.
- The column disputes the framing of government contracts as subsidies, noting SpaceX's NASA contracts and Tesla's revenue from environmental credits, which the Big Beautiful Bill is dismantling.
- Musk's "cut it all" response, including decommissioning Dragon, showed mutual dependence, since NASA relies on SpaceX for crew transport.
- A Mar-a-Lago reconciliation followed, but the author sees it as fragile and argues that Starlink's role in Ukraine and NATO exposes dangerous dependence on a single private actor.
- The author calls for institutional safeguards, such as resilience clauses and conflict-of-interest rules, rather than personal, informal fixes.

## Introduction: the most costly bromance in American industrial history

### Two egos, one planetary crack

It is hard to find in recent history a falling-out between two personalities as rich in potential consequences as the one between **Donald Trump** and **Elon Musk**. These two men — the president of the **United States** and the world's wealthiest person — built together one of the most improbable and influential power couples of the contemporary era. And they nearly destroyed everything over a federal spending bill.

When **Trump** posted on **Truth Social** that **Musk** should "**close up shop**" and go back to **South Africa** without government subsidies, it was not a presidential joke. It was a death threat addressed to the man who controls the rockets that send American astronauts into space, the satellites that feed military communications for the Ukrainian army, and the electric vehicles that embody the future of American manufacturing. If this is theater, its consequences for the American space industry would be nothing short of catastrophic.

### The "Big Beautiful Bill" as the trigger

**Trump**'s budget legislation — the "**One Big Beautiful Bill**," his flagship vehicle for federal spending cuts — lit the fuse. **Musk** exploded publicly: "**I'm sorry, but I can no longer stand by. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled spending bill is a disgusting abomination.**" Journalists **Maggie Haberman** and **Jonathan Swan** of the **New York Times**, in their book **Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump**, reveal that **Musk** was privately complaining that the bill would hurt his company **Tesla** — while publicly pretending his opposition was ideological.

**Trump** responded in the most Trumpian way possible: a stinging personal attack. "**Elon was running out of steam, I asked him to leave, I took away his EV mandate**," he thundered, adding that **Musk** was probably the recipient of more government subsidies than "**any human being in history**" and that without them he would have to close up shop and go back to **South Africa**.

*This spectacle would have been amusing if it didn't involve the rockets that put astronauts in space and the satellites guiding Ukrainian drones against Russian tanks. Two egocentric billionaires feuding on social media is comedy. Two egocentric billionaires where one controls American space infrastructure and the other runs the world's leading power — that is geopolitical thriller territory.*

## Musk's subsidies: reality or Trumpian fiction?

### The numbers behind the rhetoric

**Trump**'s claim that **Musk** is the largest beneficiary of government subsidies in history deserves factual scrutiny. **SpaceX** received more than **$500 million** from **NASA** in its founding years, including a **$1.6 billion** contract in **2008** that **Musk** himself acknowledged saved the company from bankruptcy. **Tesla** obtained a low-interest loan of **$465 million** from the Department of Energy, repaid ahead of schedule by **2013**. Federal tax credits for electric vehicle buyers generated estimates of more than **$3.4 billion** in indirect benefits for **Tesla** before the program expired.

But **Musk** struck back: all government incentives ever received by **Tesla** and **SpaceX** combined would represent less than **2 percent of their current combined value**, with **SpaceX** having recently gone public at a valuation that propels the **Musk** empire beyond **$2.1 trillion**. Moreover, he argues, many subsidies actually benefited his **competitors** more than himself. Verifying such a claim is complex — definitions of "subsidy" that include or exclude regular government contracts, environmental tax credits and carbon credit purchases can make the numbers vary considerably.

### SpaceX: is a government contract a subsidy?

The heart of the debate over **Musk**'s subsidies lies in this question: is a government contract a subsidy? **SpaceX** transports astronauts to the **International Space Station**, military satellites into orbit, and **NASA** payloads to other destinations. Those contracts represent a fraction of **SpaceX**'s revenue — perhaps **5 percent** by some estimates — but they were crucial in the early years for funding technological development. **Musk** argues that **SpaceX** wins contracts because it offers the best product at the best price — something launch data appears to confirm, with **SpaceX** having revolutionized the cost of reaching orbit with its reusable rockets.

**Tesla**, for its part, has generated more than **$12.3 billion** in revenue from selling environmental regulatory credits since **2019** — a system that requires traditional automakers to buy credits from **Tesla** to offset their emissions. That system, which **Trump** is dismantling through the **Big Beautiful Bill**, was one of **Tesla**'s main profit sources during its difficult years. Its elimination — if confirmed — would have real effects on the company's finances.

*I am not here to defend Musk or Trump — both are perfectly capable of looking after themselves. But I will say this: the distinction between a government contract and a subsidy is fundamental. SpaceX provides a real service at competitive prices. Tesla benefited from an environmental credits system designed to accelerate the shift toward electric vehicles. Calling that "subsidies" in the same breath as direct aid to a loss-making company is intellectually dishonest. Even coming from Trump.*

## "Go back to South Africa": the deportation threat that shocked the world

### Naturalization as a political weapon

In the heat of the dispute, voices close to **Trump** — notably **Steve Bannon** — pushed the president to consider radical measures against **Musk**: invoking the **Defense Production Act** to seize control of **SpaceX**, initiating deportation proceedings despite **Musk**'s American citizenship, or "denaturalizing" the South Africa-born naturalized American. The mere fact that these ideas were raised in Trumpian circles says something important about the power dynamics within this administration.

**Bloomberg** reported that **Trump** had considered "denaturalizing the South Africa native in order to deport him." This is not a public policy — **Musk** is an American citizen and denaturalization proceedings are extremely rare and limited to cases of fraud or disloyalty to the United States. But the fact that this idea circulated in the corridors of the **White House** illustrates how far the rift between the two men had gone.

### Musk responds: "Cut it all"

**Musk**'s response to the threat of canceling his government contracts was immediate and spectacular. On **X** — his own social network — he posted: "**In light of the President's statement about canceling my government contracts, SpaceX will immediately begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft.**" It was a game of bluff: without **Dragon**, **NASA** has no means of human transport to the space station. The dependence is mutual.

**Musk** also posted, in response to accusations of disproportionate subsidy receipt: "**I literally said: CUT IT ALL. Now.**" That is not the response of a man who genuinely believes he depends on government generosity for his economic survival. It is the response of a man who knows he holds the master cards in this particular poker game. The American government needs **SpaceX** at least as much — if not more — than **SpaceX** needs government contracts.

*"Cut it all": that is either the most audacious bluff in American industrial history, or the declaration of a man who has done his math and knows he cannot lose. Musk controls half of America's orbital launch capacity. Without him, NASA floats in a void — literally. Trump knows it. Musk knows it. And that is exactly why this war did not go further.*

## The facade reconciliation and what it conceals

### "Elon is my friend again"

As quickly as the dispute had exploded, an official reconciliation was proclaimed. At a campaign rally in **Wisconsin**, **Trump** declared publicly: "**Elon had a bad time, but now he's my friend again. He was having a very bad time. He's brilliant at 80 percent and at 20 percent he has bad moments. But I like him.**" That formulation — half-condescending, half-affectionate — captures the asymmetric dynamic between the two men fairly accurately.

The reconciliation was sealed at a dinner at **Mar-a-Lago**, **Trump**'s private club in **Florida**. Sources also report that **Musk** made substantial donations in support of Republican candidates in the **2026** midterm elections — a classic political transaction that reflects the underlying compromise: **Musk** resumes his role as a financial supporter of the Republican apparatus, **Trump** backs down from his most dangerous threats against **SpaceX** and **Tesla**.

### What the reconciliation does not resolve

But facade reconciliations between Trump and his former allies have a limited shelf life. The fundamental causes of the fracture remain: **Musk** has direct economic interests in policies that **Trump** supports — particularly the elimination of the electric vehicle mandate — but also in policies that **Trump** is seeking to dismantle, such as the environmental credits that fueled part of **Tesla**'s profits. These contradictions do not disappear over a dinner at **Mar-a-Lago**.

Moreover, the relationship between **Trump** and **Musk** carries a fundamental asymmetry: **Musk** is an economic actor with concrete interests to defend, while **Trump** is a political actor whose positions shift according to the tactical opportunities of the moment. As long as their interests converge, the alliance holds. The moment they diverge — as with the **Big Beautiful Bill** — the fracture re-emerges, more brutal than before because both parties now know how far the other is prepared to go.

*I don't believe in this reconciliation. Or rather: I believe it is real today and fragile tomorrow. Trump and Musk are too alike to be truly allied: both are convinced they are the most important actors of their time, both have egos of a density approaching gravitational collapse, and both are capable of reversing a relationship within 24 hours on the strength of a tweet. The next rupture is already in preparation.*

## SpaceX, Starlink and American national security

### When a private empire becomes critical infrastructure

What makes **Trump**'s threat against **SpaceX** particularly troubling is the centrality of that company to American defense strategy. **Starlink**, **SpaceX**'s low-earth-orbit satellite network, has provided **Ukraine** with critical military connectivity that has contributed to reshaping the course of the war against **Russia**. The American military depends on **SpaceX** for military satellite launches. **NASA** depends on **Dragon** for human transport. The **Artemis** initiative, which aims to return Americans to the **Moon**, rests on **SpaceX**'s **Starship**.

Canceling **SpaceX**'s contracts would not merely be economically damaging to **Musk**: it would be strategically catastrophic for the United States. No other American company possesses the launch and orbital transport capabilities that **SpaceX** has developed. **Boeing** has accumulated delay after delay on its **Starliner** capsule. **United Launch Alliance** lacks the same volume capacity. **Jeff Bezos**'s **Blue Origin** is still behind. Threatening **SpaceX** is sawing off the branch on which American space ambition sits.

### Ukraine was watching closely

The **Trump-Musk** dispute was followed with undisguised anxiety in **Kyiv**. **Starlink** has become essential military infrastructure for the **Ukrainian Armed Forces** — enabling tactical communications, drone strike coordination, and communications resilience in conflict zones where terrestrial networks have been destroyed by Russian bombardment. A serious rupture between **Musk** and the American administration could affect the continuity of this technological support, at precisely the moment when **Russia** is seeking to cut Ukrainian communication lines.

This is not hypothetical: in **2022**, **Musk** had already temporarily cut **Starlink** access in certain areas of **Crimea** during an attempted strike against the Russian fleet, citing concerns about a possible nuclear escalation. His ability to unilaterally decide access to critical military infrastructure serves as a reminder that dependence on a private actor — even an allied one — carries inherent risks that states must anticipate.

*Ukraine has every reason in the world to watch the Trump-Musk dispute with anxiety. Starlink is not just internet — it is part of the logistical backbone of Ukrainian resistance. The fact that a quarrel between two American billionaires could jeopardize that infrastructure says something essential about the risks of relying on private actors for national security functions. Europe and Ukraine must think about alternatives.*

## Tesla, EVs and the subsidy war that dare not speak its name

### The end of EV credits as a blow to Tesla

One of **Trump**'s most concrete decisions directly affecting **Musk** is the elimination of the **$7,500** federal tax credit for electric vehicle buyers, carried out in **September 2025**. **Musk** claims that **Tesla** sales actually **increased** after the credit ended, as buyers shifted toward **Tesla** from less competitive EV manufacturers. Data from **Cox Automotive** suggests that EV sales have reached record levels since then, partly because of market displacement toward **Tesla**.

But the elimination through the **Big Beautiful Bill** of environmental regulatory credits — distinct from purchase credits — could have more lasting effects on **Tesla**'s finances. These credits, automatically generated by the fact that **Tesla** sells only electric vehicles, have represented **$12.3 billion** in revenue since **2019**. Their gradual elimination would directly affect the bottom line of a company whose profitability has at times relied significantly on those ancillary revenues.

### SpaceX's mega-valuation: the IPO that changes everything

While the political war raged, **SpaceX** went public, propelling **Musk** to the rank of the world's first **trillionaire**. With a valuation exceeding **$2.1 trillion**, the **Musk** empire — **SpaceX**, **Tesla**, **xAI**, **X**, **The Boring Company**, **Neuralink** — represents a concentration of economic and technological power without precedent in the history of private enterprise. It is precisely this accumulation of power that makes the relationship between **Musk** and the American state so complex: he is too large to be ignored, too powerful to be easily controlled, and too indispensable to be broken up without massive collateral damage.

The **SpaceX** IPO also changes the political calculations: **Musk** now has fiduciary obligations to his shareholders that further complicate his ability to use government contracts as a political lever. A threat to decommission **Dragon** may excite **X** users; it risks triggering a class action from **SpaceX** shareholders.

*The world's first trillionaire. Let that sit for a moment. Elon Musk holds a fortune equivalent to the GDP of many countries. That concentration of wealth in a single person — however brilliant — raises fundamental questions about how our societies function that current tax systems are not equipped to address. The Trump-Musk dispute is a symptom. The disease is called the absence of any framework for managing such a concentration of private power.*

## xAI and Grok: Musk in the frontier AI race

### The technological rivalry beneath the political conflict

One underexamined dimension of the **Trump-Musk** dispute is the competitive one in artificial intelligence. **Musk** founded **xAI** and is developing the **Grok** model, which positions itself as a direct competitor to models from **Anthropic**, **OpenAI** — whose co-founder **Musk** was before storming out — and **Google**. In the context of the AI trade war and export controls on **Anthropic**, **Grok** would directly benefit from the weakening of its competitors.

It is tempting to see in the export controls on **Anthropic** an indirect benefit for **Musk**, who holds both a global distribution platform (**X** with its hundreds of millions of users) and an AI model (**Grok**) not subject to the same regulatory constraints. Reality is no doubt more complex, but it is impossible to ignore that the disruption of competitor **Anthropic** arrives at a convenient moment for **xAI**.

### Musk's integrated tech empire as a governance problem

The concentration in a single person's hands of a social media platform (**X**), a military satellite communications system (**Starlink**), an AI company (**xAI**), a rocket manufacturer (**SpaceX**), an electric vehicle maker (**Tesla**), and a tunnel-boring company (**The Boring Company**) raises governance questions for which our legal and institutional systems have no satisfactory answer. When a single person controls this many **critical technologies**, the risks of conflicts of interest, biased decision-making, and the use of private power for political ends become systemic.

The **Trump-Musk** dispute illustrated this problem spectacularly: two actors — one controlling the state and the other controlling critical infrastructure — nearly destroyed each other over a spending bill. This is precisely the scenario that antitrust regulators and national security experts seek to prevent — yet they lack the adequate legal tools to address it.

*I don't know whether Musk is a genius or a high-functioning narcissist — probably both, the distinction being thin at his scale. What I do know is that concentrating this many strategic technologies in the hands of a single person, whose moods can shift with a tweet, is objectively dangerous for societies that claim to run on institutions rather than on the grace of individuals. Trump understood that for a moment. He forgot just as quickly.*

## The European impact: when the American ego war crosses the Atlantic

### Starlink and European dependence on American private infrastructure

**Europe** watches the **Trump-Musk** saga with a mixture of fascination and concern. For **Ukraine**, but also for **NATO** member states that depend on **Starlink** for some of their military communications, the idea that this infrastructure could be subject to the whims of a dispute between two Americans is profoundly destabilizing. The lesson **Europe** draws from this episode is the same as the one drawn from gas dependence on **Russia**: dependence on a single actor — whether state or private — is a strategic vulnerability.

The **IRIS²** project — the **EU**'s low-earth-orbit satellite program — is under development as a European alternative to **Starlink**. But its deployment timeline extends to the end of the decade, and its capabilities will long remain inferior to those of **Musk**'s network. **Europe** is stuck in a short-term dependence against which it must develop long-term resilience — an uncomfortable situation that requires managing the relationship with **Musk** with as much care as that with **Washington**.

### The signal for European industrial policy

What the **Trump-Musk** episode reveals for European industrial policy is fundamental: when private actors reach sufficient critical mass, they become full-fledged geopolitical actors, capable of influencing state decisions and exercising leverage over governments themselves. **Europe**, which has no **Musk** of its own in the space, electric or AI sectors, finds itself in a position of double dependence — on the American state AND on its most powerful entrepreneurs.

The European response must be both regulatory — limiting private power concentration through strengthened antitrust tools — and industrial — investing massively in European technology champions capable of developing sovereign critical infrastructure. Neither response is easy or quick. But the **Trump-Musk** saga illustrated with rare clarity the consequences of unmanaged dependence.

*Europe watches Trump and Musk quarrel the way you watch a disaster movie knowing you live in the city about to be destroyed. IRIS² is a good idea, but it takes years. In the meantime, we depend on Starlink. That is not comfortable. It is, however, the reality. The real political question is how we manage that dependence responsibly while we build the alternative.*

## What this story says about American democracy

### When institutions hold — or don't

The **Trump-Musk** dispute tested several American institutions in revealing ways. **Congress**, by passing bills that include provisions favorable to **SpaceX**, implicitly acknowledged **Musk**'s indispensability to American space and defense policy. The **Senate**, by resisting Trumpian pressures on certain legislative files, maintained a degree of autonomy. The markets, by rewarding **SpaceX**'s IPO in the middle of the crisis, signaled that investors believed in the operational continuity of the company despite the political turbulence.

But the threat of denaturalization, the idea of seizing **SpaceX** via the **Defense Production Act**, and the Truth Social posts threatening to cancel private contracts — all of this illustrates the limits of institutional guardrails when a president chooses to treat his economic adversaries as political enemies. American institutions held this time. But the stress test was visible.

### Trump, Musk and crony capitalism

The episode also illustrates what many economists describe as a slide toward **crony capitalism**: a system in which economic advantages — government contracts, subsidies, favorable regulations — are distributed not on the basis of market competition, but according to political proximity to those in power. **Musk** benefited from that proximity, then lost it temporarily, then regained it. This instability is precisely what distinguishes a state governed by law from a regime where the rules depend on the prince's favor.

For an economy like that of the **United States**, which draws its strength from legal predictability and equality before the law, this drift deserves serious attention. That **Trump** may be "a necessary evil for the West" — as I believe — does not mean his methods have no consequences for the institutional health of American democracy. These things are paid for over the long term.

*I maintain that Trump is a necessary evil for the West in the sense that he forces Europe to wake up, maintains maximum pressure on China, and supported Ukraine when it counted. But his way of treating Musk — friend, enemy, friend again within weeks — illustrates exactly why institutions exist: to protect citizens and companies from the moods of their leaders. Even when those leaders are right on the essentials.*

## America's technological edge: real but fragile

### The true foundations of American technological dominance

American technological dominance rests on several pillars: the density of its venture capital ecosystem, the concentration of global talent attracted by its universities and companies, the decentralized and failure-tolerant innovation culture, and the world's largest and wealthiest domestic market. These fundamentals are solid and do not disappear with a dispute between **Trump** and **Musk**.

But they are being weakened by accumulating factors: AI export controls that discourage foreign talent, regulatory uncertainties that push some investment toward **Singapore**, **Dubai** or the **United Kingdom**, the growing politicization of government contracting decisions, and the inherent instability of an economic policy that can change with a post on **Truth Social**. These fragilities do not destroy the American lead immediately — but they erode it progressively.

### China watches, calculates and advances

While **Trump** and **Musk** quarreled on social media, **China** continued advancing on every front that matters: developing its civilian and military space program, accelerating deployment of its own AI models (**DeepSeek**, **Qwen**), expanding its electric vehicle industrial base (**BYD** dominating the global market), and consolidating its lead in renewable energy. The **Trump-Musk** spectacle is precisely the kind of democratic disorder that **Beijing**'s strategists use to feed their narrative about the superiority of authoritarian systems in executing long-term strategic priorities.

The answer to this challenge is not to suppress democratic disorder — it is freedom of expression, public debate, even the spectacle. The answer is to build institutions robust enough that these disorders do not affect fundamental strategic capabilities. The **Trump-Musk** dispute showed that those institutions are holding, for now. But "for now" is not a guarantee.

*China watches the democracies tear themselves apart over ego disputes and congratulates itself on its discipline. I don't want that discipline — it goes by the name of authoritarianism. But I would like our democracies to find a way to address strategic questions with the same coherence as their adversaries, without sacrificing the freedoms that define us. That is the central political challenge of our era. And neither Trump nor Musk has solved it.*

## The Pentagon facing Musk-dependence: toward a space continuity plan

### The U.S. military in the discomfort of unprecedented dependence

The **Trump-Musk** dispute spotlighted a structural vulnerability that American military planners knew about but preferred not to state publicly: the **Pentagon** now depends on a single private actor — **SpaceX** — for a critical portion of its launch, orbital transport and satellite communication capabilities. This concentration of dependence is without precedent in American defense history, where the traditional logic was to maintain multiple competitive suppliers to avoid exactly this kind of situation.

Government Accountability Office documents published in March **2026** had already flagged that the **U.S. Space Force** lacked a sufficient operational continuity plan in the event of an interruption to **SpaceX**'s services. The June crisis put that report under the spotlight. The **Senate** called for a full review of space procurement policy to avoid dependence on a single supplier. The long-term answer — diversifying toward **United Launch Alliance**, **Blue Origin** or a successor to **Starliner** — will take years and billions of dollars.

### The resilience clause: an urgent institutional protection

A bipartisan group of American senators proposed what they called a "**resilience clause for critical space infrastructure**": a legal requirement that any government contract for critical space services include a continuity clause specifying the conditions for transfer to another provider in the event the incumbent becomes unavailable. This is not an instrument against **SpaceX** — it is institutional protection against the fragility created by concentration.

Implementing such clauses would not be costless: they would require other providers to maintain replacement capabilities, which represents an additional expense. But that cost is precisely the price of resilience — what the military calls the "**cost of insurance**." The **Trump-Musk** crisis demonstrated that the absence of insurance carries a real price, not merely a theoretical one.

*There is something almost comic about watching the Pentagon — an organization whose fundamental mission is preventing strategic vulnerabilities — find itself in a position where its space capability depends on the quality of personal relations between two personalities as volatile as Trump and Musk. Military institutions are built to withstand irrational individual decisions. Apparently not at this level.*

## The governance model for critical private infrastructure: a global legal vacuum

### When constitutional law has no answer

The **Trump-Musk** dispute exposed a real legal vacuum in American constitutional and commercial law: no clear legal framework exists for managing the situation in which a private actor controls infrastructure that has become de facto critical national infrastructure. American law allows the president to invoke the **Defense Production Act** to compel production in a national emergency — but its application to **SpaceX**, which is not a traditional manufacturer, is legally contested.

Other countries face the same vacuum. The **European Union**, with its **IRIS²** program, seeks to build its own satellite infrastructure to reduce dependence on **Starlink** — but the answer to the question of what one does if a private critical infrastructure provider decides to discontinue service tomorrow remains unclear in most national legal frameworks. This vacuum is not only American — it is global.

### Lessons from energy infrastructure for space infrastructure

The energy sector offers useful precedents. In most democracies, electricity grids — even when managed by private operators — are subject to universal service obligations, regulatory continuity plans, and the possibility of emergency nationalization if the private operator cannot or will not ensure service continuity. These frameworks were developed precisely because governments learned the hard way what critical infrastructure without institutional protection meant.

Space and satellite communications infrastructure deserves the same type of regulatory framework. The speed at which **Starlink** became critical military and civilian infrastructure — in **Ukraine**, in aviation communications, in rural areas without other connectivity — outpaced the speed at which legal systems could adapt. That governance challenge is one democracies must address before the next crisis arrives.

*The law always runs behind technology. That observation is as old as the industrial revolution. But in a world where a single man can threaten to decommission the craft connecting astronauts to Earth, and where that same man controls the communications infrastructure of an army at war, the gap between technological reality and legal framework becomes dangerous. We cannot afford another century of catch-up.*

## The impact on NATO defense partnerships: reliability in question

### Starlink as a tactical asset of the Atlantic alliance

Beyond **Ukraine**, **Starlink** has become a tactical asset for several **NATO** members that have integrated **SpaceX**'s satellite communications into their military doctrines. Countries like **Poland**, the **Baltic states** and **Finland** — on the front line against the Russian threat — have accelerated their adoption of **Starlink** for military and civilian communications in areas where terrestrial networks are considered vulnerable. Their dependence on an American private actor for critical military communications did not go unnoticed during the **Trump-Musk** crisis.

The **NATO** summit planned for **2026** will need to address the question of allied communications resilience in the face of this dependence. The **Alliance** has its own satellite systems — **NATO SATCOMs** — but their capacity and coverage remain inferior to **Starlink**'s for high-frequency tactical operations. The debate over how to maintain the operational advantage provided by **Starlink** while reducing the vulnerability created by dependence on a single private actor will be one of the Alliance's major doctrinal challenges in the years ahead.

### The race for alternatives: IRIS², OneWeb, SES

Several alternatives to **Starlink** are under development in the Western world. The European **IRIS²** program, funded by the **EU**, aims to deploy a low-earth-orbit satellite constellation by **2030**. **OneWeb**, acquired by the British government and **Bharti Global**, already offers satellite coverage for data communications. **SES**, based in **Luxembourg**, operates a hybrid constellation in medium and geostationary orbit.

None of these alternatives currently matches **Starlink**'s coverage, density and cost — that is the industrial reality. But the **Trump-Musk** crisis provided the political argument that was missing to accelerate their deployment and public funding. **Europe**, which had been slow to invest in **IRIS²**, must now accelerate — not to compete commercially with **SpaceX**, but to guarantee it is no longer at the mercy of a dispute between two Americans for its security.

*IRIS² will be operational by 2030, all going well. Until then, NATO and its most exposed members facing the Russian threat remain dependent on Starlink for part of their critical military communications. Four years of vulnerability in such a tense geopolitical context is not a trivial period. I hope military planners have Plan Bs that their governments have not made public.*

## Musk after the reconciliation: what rules for future conflicts of interest?

### A precedent without an institutional framework

The reconciliation between **Trump** and **Musk** closed the immediate crisis but resolved nothing at the root. **Musk** remains the world's first **trillionaire**, controlling technologies critical to **America**'s defense and the communications of its allies. The potential conflicts of interest between his companies and American public policy have not disappeared — they are waiting for the next occasion to resurface. And without an institutional framework to manage them, every future conflict will produce the same chaotic improvisation.

Proposals have emerged in American legal and political circles to create a mandatory conflict-of-interest disclosure regime for actors who control both critical infrastructure and massive government contracts. This regime could include restrictions on public statements capable of affecting markets, obligations to manage government contracts and commercial activities separately, and recourse mechanisms in the event of behavior deemed prejudicial to the national interest.

### The future of the Musk-U.S. government relationship

Beyond rules, the fundamental question is political: how does a democracy manage its relationship with an individual whose wealth and control over critical technologies give him power potentially greater than that of many states? American history has precedents — the great industrialists of the early **20th century**, the **post-war** bankers — but none possessed the combination of multiple critical technologies, proprietary media and individual wealth that **Musk** holds today.

The normal institutional response to this type of power concentration would be antitrust regulation or partial nationalization. But antitrust instruments designed for goods and services markets apply poorly to an actor whose power derives from the combination of technologies across several distinct sectors. And nationalization is politically and constitutionally difficult in the American context. This vacuum is a fundamental democratic governance problem — not exclusively American, but particularly acute in the **United States** where the concentration of wealth is most extreme.

*I don't know how to solve the Musk problem at the institutional level. That is not intellectual weakness — it is a genuinely new problem. We have never had anyone like him. But I know that "not knowing" cannot be the permanent policy answer. Democracies must find a way to manage concentrations of private power that exceed their existing institutional framework, or that framework will progressively become obsolete.*

## Conclusion: dangerous theater for a world in technological Cold War

### The real risk behind the spectacle

The **Trump-Musk** dispute is partly theater — two oversized personalities clashing for the benefit of their respective bases. But behind the spectacle, the stakes are real: the future of the American space program, the continuity of Ukrainian military communications, the trajectory of the American auto industry, and the long-term health of the innovation ecosystem that built the **United States**' technological supremacy. If this dispute were merely theater, it would simply be ridiculous. Because it touches on real critical infrastructure, it is potentially dangerous.

The current reconciliation is welcome. But its fragility is a problem in itself. American national security — and by extension, the security of its allies, including **Ukraine** — cannot depend on the temperature of the personal relationship between the president and the head of a private company. That level of uncertainty is a luxury the United States cannot afford in a world where **China**, **Russia**, **Iran** and **North Korea** are playing on decadal time horizons.

### What we take away from the episode

Ultimately, what the **Trump-Musk** saga reveals most clearly is the need for clear rules — on government contracts with private companies providing critical services, on the limits of presidential intervention in the affairs of private companies, on the governance of dual-use civilian-military technologies. This is not an anti-**Trump** or anti-**Musk** argument. It is a call for the institutions that allow democracy and the market economy to function to be robust enough to survive the bad moods of the individuals who momentarily embody or lead them.

*The Trump-Musk saga ends — for now — with a Mar-a-Lago dinner reconciliation. That is the most American possible resolution: personal, informal, without any institutionalization of lessons learned. In ten years, we will wonder whether that was the right way to handle an institutional crisis of this magnitude. I think we already know the answer.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Morung Express — Without EV subsidies, Musk to close up shop, head back to South Africa: Trump — June 25, 2026](https://morungexpress.com/without-ev-subsidies-musk-to-close-up-shop-head-back-home-to-south-africa-trump)

- [Our Today — Musk, Trump reignite social media feud over big spending bill — June 3, 2026](https://our.today/musk-trump-reignite-social-media-feud-over-big-spending-bill/)

- [Bloomberg — SpaceX Debut Leaves Musk Atop Trillionaire Mountain — June 12, 2026](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-06-12/spacex-debut-brings-trillionaire-musk-full-circle-evening-briefing-americas)

### Secondary sources

- [CNN — How much of Musk's wealth comes from government help? — June 13, 2026](https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/13/business/musk-trillionaire-government-tesla-spacex)

- [Yahoo Finance — Elon Is Scared Of This Conversation: Democrat Fires Back At Musk's Subsidy Defense — June 17, 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/elon-scared-conversation-democrat-fires-003106387.html)

- [Radar Online — The Real Reason Donald Trump and Elon Musk Ended Their Bromance — June 25, 2026](https://radaronline.com/p/donald-trump-elon-musk-end-relationship-cant-have-friends/)

- [The Guardian — Trump assured Musk and Carlson he wouldn't go to war with Iran — June 19, 2026](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/19/trump-musk-carlson-iran-war)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/billet-trump-vs-musk-la-rupture-qui-menace-l-avance-technologique-americaine