Wednesday Morning Rant

As the country (and the world more broadly) has shifted toward what are nowadays called "oligarchs" wielding significant power over official affairs, there are few renegade oligarchs. Those in that particular club know where their bread gets buttered, and are in the business of playing ball. Some - perhaps most - are true believers and most of the rest are pragmatic enough to go with the flow. There are fairly few "renegade oligarchs" on the scene, and none of them grab more headlines than Elon Musk.

The world's richest man, chief internet troll and leading hate object does buck the trend, and has gotten louder about it over the past year or so. This is, of course, unconscionable to most of the people in positions of power. The sniping at Musk from power centers has grown right along with his heterodoxy. What's somewhat interesting about all this isn't that it's happening, but that it's being done so transparently. What would, in the old days, have been couched and masked is now out in the open for all to see.

The most recent example is out of California. SpaceX does launches from Vandenberg, in California. It wants to do more. This is between SpaceX and the military. Vandenberg and SpaceX in this context - as a military installation and a defense contractor, respectively - are above California's law and regulation. This causes tension in the California state government, since its regulatory agency - the California Coastal Commission - can't arbitrarily dictate terms.

The Air Force (and now the Space Force) is fairly adept at mollifying California, agreeing to things like studying the effects of launches on nearby wildlife and trying to mitigate the effects of sonic booms in the area. The Air Force and Space Force make some kind of peace offering to California, and California's regulators pretend to be satisfied with the compromise. Then the show starts up again.

SpaceX is queering the deal. They want more launches, and California hates Elon Musk. All the usual stuff is here - wildlife and noise complaints, for example - but the crux of the problem is Elon Musk. California cannot abide Musk, and so the regulator has rejected the military's recent proposals, and couldn't help but tell the public that it's because of Musk:

Members of the California Coastal Commission commended Space Force and Air Force representatives for reaching an agreement, but some cited their concerns about Musk, the owner of SpaceX, before rejecting the plan.

Among the issues raised were Musk's decision to insert himself in the presidential race, his spreading of conspiracy theories, the labor record of his companies and derogatory comments he has made about the transgender community.

"We're dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race," commission Chair Caryl Hart said.

"This guy has the audacity to be politically active in the wrong way, and doesn't kowtow to our ideology. No deal." Excellent standard you have there, California. Great for your state and your economy. All around splendid stuff.

California is arguing that SpaceX's launches from Vandenberg are purely commercial (some of them anyway, since SpaceX uses some of them to put up more Starlink satellites) and that classifying it under military activity - and firewalling it away from California's regulators - is inappropriate and invalid. But the reason for the disagreement over SpaceX's classification as a defense contractor has nothing to do with SpaceX activities as such, and everything to do with Musk:

"This company is owned by the richest person in the world with direct control of what could be the most expansive communications system in the planet," Commissioner Mike Wilson said. "Just last week that person was talking about political retribution."

Wilson asked how could members of the commission be assured that equipment being launched would benefit U.S. interests if most of it was for the benefit of a private company.

"Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] while claiming his desire to help hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet," Commissioner Gretchen Newsom said.

There was a time when I would say, "well, this is an obvious First Amendment violation and it will never get any legs," but those days are in the past. It doesn't really matter that California is directly targeting Musk because of his political speech and heterodoxy. That's old hat nowadays. The only question really is whether Musk is more valuable to the defense complex than he is hated by the political complex.

It's now just normal for a major and powerful government to bluntly say, "we don't like the cut of your jib, so we're going to hamstring you." They're not even bothering to sugarcoat it anymore.

posted by Joe Mannix at 10:55 AM

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