Government Weaponized Against Elon Musk Once Again

(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Elon Musk’s business prospects changed on May 18, 2022.

On that day he Tweeted this:

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Of course, Musk had already dented his reputation with Democrats and created the conditions under which the Democrats would decide to destroy him earlier, especially when he made his bid to buy Twitter the previous month. By declaring war on the censorship complex Musk put a huge target on his back.

As predicted, the dirty tricks campaign did indeed begin almost immediately. Federal agencies demonstrated a newfound…diligence…in their mission to regulate Musk’s companies. One could almost say that the government was weaponized against him, although suggesting anything so crude would be called a conspiracy theory.

Yeah, well, whatever. The Democrats put a target on Musk’s back, and federal agencies started firing. You know it, I know it, and every Democrat who denies the obvious knows it, too. They just think that is how the government is supposed to work.

The latest shot taken at Musk is the FCC deciding to reverse their earlier decision to subsidize Starlink access for rural customers who otherwise have no ability to get broadband.

The program is supposed to close the “digital divide” by ensuring that every person in America can access high-speed internet. Given the country’s geography, some people will never get traditional internet service simply because the expense of getting cables to their homes is astronomical. The program was to go into effect in 2025, allowing providers to expand their infrastructure. Starlink was one of several providers serving various areas.

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Starlink was supposed to close that gap, making subsidies available to people who couldn’t otherwise afford the high startup costs of setting up the service.

Back in 2020, the FCC identified Starlink as the most viable solution to closing the digital divide for over half a million Americans–a decision so glaringly obvious that only a fool would deny that it was the best available solution.

Now, the FCC is reversing its decision to back Starlink, and despite dropping the service, the FCC has no alternative in place. In dropping Starlink, they left the customers who were to be served nothing.

The decision is based on a standard that is unique to Starlink. The FCC tested the speeds available in these areas years before the service was supposed to begin and concluded that Starlink couldn’t provide sufficient service years from now.

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Of course, none of the other providers who are part of the program is providing any service at all right now, so if you speed-tested them today, the service would provide 0 Mbps up and 0 Mbps down. The whole point of the delay in implementation is allowing the companies to build out their infrastructure, and we already know that other government agencies are confident Starlink will be able to meet service standards because they have contracted the company to provide it.

Which seems more likely: fiber optic cables strung to every home without them by 2025 or the gradual expansion of Starlink over the next two years?

I know what option I would bet on. Do you take your cable company’s word on when someone will arrive to connect you up?

Including the military. Starlink works and works better every day. The FCC is inventing a problem, not identifying one.

Adding to the evidence that this is political retribution and not regulatory oversight is this fact: Democrats spent 2022 and 2023 telling everybody that they put a target on Elon Musk’s back.

Every federal agency that can has been breathing down Musk’s neck ever since he announced that he would be voting Republican and was taking Twitter out of the censorship business.

That is the basis for FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s dissent from the FCC decision; he thinks it is politically motivated and knows it will harm the people Starlink had been contracted to serve. They are being abandoned for no other reason than to harm Elon Musk.

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Once again what we are seeing is the abandonment of all standards for political purposes. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will be hurt, the rule of law gutted, and for no other reason than the Biden Administration wants to hurt a single person for political reasons.

Joe Biden must go.

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