Russia plans to build own version of US billionaire’s satellite communications to help attack Ukraine
Vladimir Putin praised Elon Musk’s genius and said he was in touch with Starlink’s controlling shareholder as Russia develops its own satellite communications for its military to use against Ukraine.
The Russian president, speaking at a summit with African leaders in Moscow, was comparing the Earth-orbiting network built by Musk’s SpaceX with Russia’s gradual efforts to build its own Rassvet constellation.
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© Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/Reuters
© Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/Reuters
© Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/Reuters
Russia plans to build own version of US billionaire’s satellite communications to help attack Ukraine
Vladimir Putin praised Elon Musk’s genius and said he was in touch with Starlink’s controlling shareholder as Russia develops its own satellite communications for its military to use against Ukraine.
The Russian president, speaking at a summit with African leaders in Moscow, was comparing the Earth-orbiting network built by Musk’s SpaceX with Russia’s gradual efforts to build its own Rassvet constellation.
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© Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/Reuters
© Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/Reuters
© Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/Reuters
Elon Musk vuole acquistare una città in Mississippi: si chiama Southaven, ospita una centrale elettrica fondamentale per alimentare i data center della sua intelligenza artificiale, e da alcuni media americani è stata già ribattezzata “Elonville“. Il piano del miliardario prevede l’acquisto di 418 case a un prezzo di mercato di 180.000 dollari; come parte della compravendita è previsto anche un accordo con i proprietari in cui rinunciano a partecipare a una causa legale contro l’azienda. Diciotto proprietari avrebbero già accettato.
La proposta indecente di Musk agli abitanti di questo piccolo centro è: vendetemi le vostre case e trasferitevi altrove. E non è neanche una di quelle offerte che non si possono rifiutare. Pare, infatti, che il miliardario non voglia andare oltre il prezzo di mercato, 180.000 dollari. Secondo quanto riferito dal sindaco della città, le case serviranno ad accogliere il personale di xAI, la società di intelligenza artificiale di Musk confluita in SpaceX a febbraio che sta vivendo una fase di espansione rapidissima nell’area.
Negli ultimi due anni, infatti, l’azienda ha realizzato tre data center tra Southaven e la vicina Memphis, in Tennessee. Ed è lì che Musk trascorre almeno tre notti a settimana, dormendo in un caravan, nemmeno di super lusso, per supervisionare direttamente il progetto. D’altra parte Musk ha investito circa mezzo miliardo di dollari per sostenere l’elezione di candidati repubblicani negli ultimi due cicli elettorali e il suo fervore per i data center è condiviso da Donald Trump e dalla sua amministrazione.
Non si può invece dire che i residenti di Southaven siano entusiasti. Per quanto alcuni abitanti siano propensi ad accettare l’offerta dell’uomo più ricco del mondo e lasciare la città, altri intendono dare battaglia. A giugno tre residenti della zona, esasperati dal frastuono causato dai lavori di espansione dell’impianto di xAI, hanno intentato una causa, lamentando “rumori costanti, vibrazioni e altri disagi” a causa delle turbine a gas necessarie per l’alimentazione.
L'articolo Elonville, la città che Musk vuole comprare per i suoi data center dell’intelligenza artificiale proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.
Once our eyes adjusted to the aggressive glare of the freshly painted white walls around the yard, we began to make out figures, dozens of them dressed in navy blue, clinging to the inner walls of this surreal space.
It was a scorching June day in western Ukraine, and we
Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby believes passengers are more interested in Starlink than ticket prices when picking which airline to fly with.
"I think Starlink, behind the schedule, is the most important thing for customers to choose an airline now," Kirby told the "Cheeky Pint" podcast on Tuesday's episode.
United is leading the way in the US in installing Starlink, the high-speed WiFi service from Elon Musk's SpaceX. The airline was one of the first to sign up in 2024 and has since equipped almost half of its planes with Starlink.
While Starlink is on all United's regional airplanes — those operated under the United Express brand — it is on less than 3% of its wide-body jets that fly long-haul routes, according to the airline's tracking tool.
Some travelers are choosing flights on these smaller regional airplanes to ensure they can access Starlink, Kirby told "Cheeky Pint."
Kirby said that when passengers told him this, his reaction was: "Holy cow!"
He also recalled booking a recent flight and ensuring he wouldn't be in the air when the Milwaukee Brewers were playing, so he could watch the game on TV. "Whereas if I had known for certain that my flight was going to have Starlink, I would have booked it during the game," he added.
American Airlines has also made a deal with Starlink, but it is not due to begin installing the terminals until early next year. Delta Air Lines has instead signed up for Amazon Leo, a similar service due to launch in 2028, which has attracted considerable criticism from Musk.
Although Musk has called for Delta CEO Ed Bastian to be fired, Kirby disagreed. "He's not going to lose his job over it," he said.
However, United is trying to win over Delta customers who might want Starlink. This month, it ran a promotion offering to match travelers' loyalty status on Delta or American, advertising "the fastest WiFi in the sky."
Thousands of customers signed up within two weeks, United said, and status match applications were up 275% compared to before the campaign.
"We're going to get customers that have been loyal to other airlines that try us for Starlink and stay because the technology is better," Kirby told the podcast.
While he called Starlink "the biggest competitive advantage," he also said it won't last forever.
"Everybody eventually is going to have high-speed, low Earth orbit. It's going to be a must-have."
A test satellite for a future communications network under Ukrainian control is working in orbit, Ukraine’s Himera and Denmark’s GomSpace said on 27 October. The companies say it will work for Ukraine’s strategic security, and that the long-term aim is to rely less on foreign communications providers. Public launch records for the mission do not list a satellite by that name, though some of its objects are still unidentified.
Ukraine fights Russia on satellite links it doesn’t control, and the announcement comes two weeks after it saw what depending on an outside provider can cost. The satellite, the companies say, went up on 1 October, before that trouble began. Overnight on 14 October, Starlink and its military version, Starshield, began dropping links on fast-moving terminals, and Ukrainian officials said the cap disrupted drone missions. On 24 October, 10 days after the cap began, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reported speeds restored. Who ordered the cap remains contested. That same day, Elon Musk wrote that Ukraine’s military had violated Starlink’s terms of service and that “that loophole was closed last week,” a claim a Ukrainian presidential adviser disputed.
Obria Nano flew on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare mission, the release said. Aalborg-based GomSpace built it on Himera’s order, Himera co-founder and CEO Misha Rudominski wrote on Facebook. He added that the team received the first signals the next day and that the satellite is now working. Its tests are meant to inform the design of the full Obria system, the release said.
No satellite called Obria Nano appears on SpaceX’s published list for the mission, The Insider found. Public tracking catalogs show one Ukrainian satellite from that launch, named UASAT-Nano. Another 26 objects from the mission are still listed with placeholder names and no confirmed owner. The outlet said it is unclear whether the two names refer to one satellite.
UASAT-Nano is the satellite network Stetman, another Ukrainian company, is building, and its founder said the network’s first test satellite would launch in October. In April, Stetman and GomSpace agreed to set up a joint venture called UASAT and planned a first launch for fall 2026. The Obria release does not mention Stetman or UASAT.
Rudominski wrote that Himera’s next stage is to produce satellites and ground terminals in Ukraine. He called it important not only to use the technology but also to gradually build domestic expertise and manufacturing.
“For us, this project is about more than launching a satellite. It is an opportunity to lay the foundation for an independent communications network for Ukraine,” Rudominski said in the release.
In the long run, the network would cover all of Ukraine and complement European satellite networks, the release said. The network does not exist yet, and Himera has given no timeline.
Replacing Starlink will not be quick. Lance Hunter, a political scientist at Augusta University, told Time that Ukraine cannot quickly swap out such technology, since diversifying it “takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of resources.” Meanwhile, one Ukrainian interceptor-drone maker has begun rethinking its air-launched designs after the slowdown.
Elon Musk is under attack! Countless Democrats are admitting they plan to investigate or even jail him if they take back power on Congress in the midterms. They can't tell you what he specifically did wrong, but they'll come up with something.
Just as bad, or even worse, however, is that some of his critics want to nationalize his companies, including Starlink, which provides crucial infrastructure to Ukraine. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a far-left populist Democrat, thinks Starlink is too important to be left under Musk's control, and that the federal government would do a better job administering it. I doubt that, but let's hear what he had to say:
NEW: Robert Reich calls for the "defunding" of Elon Musk, calls for Democrats to go after Musk's companies.
"Democrats ought to [start] laying the groundwork for nationalizing Starlink & SpaceX… It should be a public corporation."
Does he want Musk to drop another $50M on the… pic.twitter.com/0jiljf0CtG
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 25, 2026
From the horse's mouth: Reich thinks Democrats should be laying the groundwork to nationalize Starlink and SpaceX. This idea is crazy and reckless—and even dangerous. Here's why.
Now it's important to go over some of the background here. Starlink is a product that Ukraine uses to provide internet to its people, but only for civilian uses. Musk has maintained that while he is very happy to provide internet to Ukraine in the face of unrelenting invasion, Starlink cannot be used for offensive military purposes, because this would make his satellites a legitimate target of Russia in terms of their war effort. We want to avoid that. Separately, Starshield, a different system, is administered by the Pentagon, and Musk claims he has no control over it.
What happened last week is that a slowdown of the Starshield system resulted in reduced effectiveness of Ukraine's counterstrikes against Russia. And look, that was a problem. I traveled to Ukraine earlier this summer as part of a delegation arranged by a pro-Ukrainian nonprofit. I saw up close how important Starshield is to the defense of a free Ukraine. Moreover, there's entirely too much griping about Ukraine coming from some corners of right-wing media. Some people often seem to forget that Russia is invading Ukraine, not the other way around. It's Russia that won't accept a peace deal. When President Donald Trump called for an immediate ceasefire, Ukraine stopped hitting energy infrastructure in Russia—but Russia kept attacking anyway. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has agreed to immediately stop fighting and freeze the conflict along the current lines, just like Trump wants. It's Russian President Vladimir Putin who won't negotiate.
We don't know for sure who ordered the Starshield slowdown. The U.S. government has denied doing so. Musk has, however, claimed Ukraine violated the terms of service of Starlink, using it for offensive military purposes, and thus that system was slowed down. I understand why that might be frustrating for the Ukrainians, but the fact is that it's Musk's company, so he makes the rules. It belongs to him.
And importantly, it has to stay that way. Nationalizing the company would be an insane step to take in response to a tech owner having a say in how his product is used. Do we really trust the government to operate these companies as efficiently as their founders? Of course not. Moreover, in this specific case, it might bring us closer to a direct confrontation with Russia—and as much as it's a good thing to undermine the Russian conquest of Ukraine, we do not want to start World War III.
And there are the broader philosophical harms. We are experiencing an unprecedented flourishing in the tech space, with AI, driverless cars, robotics, and such. When the government nationalizes a successful tech company, it sends a warning to all the others: If you're too good at what you do, we might take you over. We might punish you. This disincentivizes investment and innovation at a time when they're desperately needed.
Nationalizing Musk's companies is doing Ukraine no favors. But it will hurt America's interests too. We want to encourage Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, and all the rest to compete with one another to design products that make life better, earning them profits along the way. It doesn't work if the government butts in. Unfortunately, far-left thinkers like Reich, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), and many of the people who are about to be elected to Congress for the first time actually want to slow down the pace of tech. That's how much they hate Musk.
The post Democrats Want to Punish Elon Musk. Nationalizing SpaceX Would Punish Innovation. appeared first on Reason Magazine.
No private individual should have the power to determine US foreign policy, as Musk has attempted to do in Ukraine
He’s Exhibit A on why billionaire wealth should be taxed, why we must get big money out of politics, why billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to buy up major media, and why our government shouldn’t give them huge military contracts.
I’m talking about Elon Musk, of course.
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© Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP
© Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP
© Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP
Elon Musk, empresário multibilionário e aliado do presidente dos Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, questionou nesta segunda-feira (26) a legitimidade dos resultados das eleições brasileiras após o presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) vencer o senador Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) por uma diferença de três pontos percentuais.
O dono da Tesla questionou o ganho de 9,3 milhões de votos do candidato do PT em uma publicação no X. “A conta não fecha”, afirmou o empresário ao repostar outro post sobre o tema.
Além dele, Steve Bannon, ex-conselheiro da Casa Branca e outro aliado de Trump, também criticou o pleito, chamando o resultado de “ilegítimo”.
Ele afirmou em seu podcast, Bannon’s Warroom, que a virada de Lula representava um “governo marxista ilegal”.
O aliado de Trump também pediu que o secretário de Estado dos EUA, Marco Rubio, e o presidente americano cortassem todas as relações com o Brasil.
“O Secretário de Estado e o Presidente (Trump) precisam sair agora, cortar as relações diplomáticas e fechar tudo com o Brasil”, afirmou Bannon.
Os comentários foram feitos após a extensão do período de votação para até as 19h do domingo (25), devido a relatos de problemas no transporte público em diversas regiões do país.
A decisão da prorrogação do horário da votação foi tomada pelo ministro Cristiano Zanin, do Supremo Tribunal Federal, por volta das 17h, horário inicialmente previsto para o encerramento do pleito, e provocou um impasse operacional, já que milhares de urnas haviam sido fechadas.
Posteriormente, o Tribunal Superior Eleitoral esclareceu que a prorrogação valeria apenas para as seções eleitorais que ainda estivessem abertas, sem possibilidade de reabrir equipamentos já encerrados.
Apesar das dificuldades, o presidente do TSE, ministro Kassio Nunes Marques, afirmou que a medida não comprometeu o resultado das eleições, que confirmaram a reeleição do presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), com 51,79% dos votos, contra 48,21% de Flávio Bolsonaro (PL).
A diferença de votos entre o petista e o filho do ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro foi de 4,4 milhões de votos. Esse número foi duas vezes superior à vitória de Lula contra Jair Bolsonaro (PL) em 2022, quando o petista teve uma vantagem de 2,1 milhões de votos.
“Volto a dizer: não houve nenhuma alteração advinda da decisão judicial. Temos absoluta confiança em todo o processo eleitoral”, declarou Nunes Marques, após a divulgação do resultado.
*sob supervisão de Tiago Tortella, da CNN Brasil
It has been a wild few weeks for the US-Ukraine relationship as Trump, more and more, has been able to be what he always wanted to be: a friend and supporter of Vladimir Putin. It started openly with the diesel deal, which drove a coach and horses through the sanctions regime leveled on Russia, a […]
The post In the Starlink case Trump reacted to pressure, not flattery appeared first on Asia Times.
Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Getty Images
Elon Musk's Starlink has won its latest customer, a budget airline that could put pressure on one of the WiFi service's biggest critics.
EasyJet announced on Monday that the high-speed WiFi service would be deployed on its airplanes from the first half of next year. The British airline, which carries 100 million passengers a year, hopes to have Starlink installed across its 300-strong fleet by early 2028.
The deal means two of Europe's three biggest budget airlines have committed to Starlink.
Wizz Air, a Hungarian carrier that flies about 70 million passengers a year, signed up in June.
That leaves Ryanair, the continent's largest airline and the world's third-largest, as the only one of Europe's biggest budget carriers without the service.
Its CEO, Michael O'Leary, is well-known for being outspoken and took aim at Starlink earlier this year, leading to a spat with Musk.
"We don't think our passengers are willing to pay for WiFi for an average one-hour flight," O'Leary told Reuters in January.
While Starlink is typically offered free to passengers, O'Leary also complained about increased fuel costs due to the aerodynamic drag of a Starlink terminal, installed on the top of airplanes.
Musk responded in an X post, arguing that Ryanair — which carries over 200 million passengers a year — would lose customers to airlines that do have internet access.
Over the next week, the two CEOs called each other idiots while Musk called for O'Leary to be fired and joked about purchasing the airline.
But Ryanair appeared to have the last laugh, using the publicity to launch a "Big 'Idiot' Sale" with 100,000 tickets starting at £16.99, or about $23.
The situation has some parallels with the US's Big Three airlines. While United Airlines has Starlink on almost half of its fleet and American Airlines is starting installations early next year, Delta Air Lines has instead tapped Amazon Leo, beginning in 2028.
This has led Musk to insult Delta's CEO, Ed Bastian, and call for his firing.
But American passengers are wealthier and more interested in premium offerings than their European counterparts. That trend has also prompted US budget airlines to offer comfier seats and package deals.
Adding free amenities for passengers is at odds with the typical no-frills budget-airline business model that relies on extra charges to turn a profit.
However, easyJet and Wizz may see Starlink as a way to gain an edge over Ryanair.
That may not last forever, though. In a January earnings call, O'Leary said, "I think as the WiFi technology improves over the next four or five years, we'll all be offering free WiFi access."
"We should (have) some sympathy for the poor Russian conscripts too. Those kids have no choice but to fight and die in drone strikes."
For anyone watching and understanding Ukraine's years-long struggle for survival, the words of SpaceX founder and world's richest man Elon
In the midst of Donald Trump's attempt to turn Russian diesel into a political asset to help him avoid disaster in November's midterm elections, the internet went out on the front lines.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian forces have relied on Starlink to
Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images
In the next few weeks, public investors will get their chance to buy a piece of Anthropic.
But regular investors will never have a chance to steer the AI giant's decisions: Even though Anthropic is going public, it will essentially remain a private company, controlled by a handful of people with outsized power.
That's not unusual for giant tech companies launched in the past few decades (Larry Page and Sergey Brin have effective control of Google; Mark Zuckerberg has the same at Meta, as does Elon Musk at SpaceX.) It's also something you see at some prominent media companies (Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan have effective control of his two public companies; Larry and David Ellison have the same at Skydance.)
Anthropic's twist on the idea is that control is split between two different groups of insiders. There's a clique of seven founders, including CEO Dario Amodei and his sister, Daniela, who control 50.1% of shareholder voting power. And there's also a trust with the power to appoint four of the company's seven directors.
Put those two together, and you get a corporate constitution designed to keep public investors outside the real decisions. The founders control the outcome of any shareholder vote; the trust controls the board.
In theory, those two groups could end up in conflict on major issues. The trust-appointed directors might, say, vote to replace Amodei with a new CEO. Or the founder group could veto a sale approved by the board.
In reality, there's a lot of overlap between the two groups. For starters, Anthropic created and funds the trust. And Anthropic itself says it has made sure the trust is staffed with people who see the world the same way its executives do: "In practice to date, the Trustees and company executives have collaborated closely on sourcing, interviewing, and selecting Trustees," the company notes in its S-1 filing.
The main takeaway is that there's no way for an individual shareholder, or even institutional shareholders who own significant chunks of Anthropic's equity, to force it to move one way or another.
The upside of arrangements like this are pretty clear, from a founder's perspective: They insulate their founders and managers from investors who might only care about short-term goals.
The downside: These structures insulate founders and managers from investors who might have very good reasons to want the company to change.
A good counter-example to the trend is Twitter, which went public in 2013 without founder control — which is why Elon Musk was able to buy it nearly a decade later.
In Anthropic's case, that aversion to giving public investors a real voice is synced directly to the company's founding thesis — that the AI it is developing is so consequential and potentially dangerous, that it must be controlled by people who care about more than Anthropic's share price.
And for many investors clamoring to get in on Anthropic's IPO, that lack of control — disclosed up front — won't matter. They just want their shares to be worth more over time. Musk's ironclad control of SpaceX didn't put dampen demand for the biggest IPO in history.
But if investors ever want to force Anthropic to do something the Amodeis and their cofounders — or the Anthropic-created trust — don't want it to do, they'll be out of luck. Buyer beware.
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