For the last few hundred years, virtually no American family named their son Benedict. That’s because Benedict Arnold has become the exemplar of someone willing to sacrifice his country for money. Benjamin Franklin wrote of him, “Judas sold only one man, Arnold, three million.” There will also be no American boys named Elon for the next few centuries because we are very close to giving Elon Musk the power to be our next Benedict Arnold.
The British paid Arnold the equivalent of about $5 million in today’s dollars. The Chinese have paid Musk billions of dollars through loans and market exclusivity.
Among other things, Musk has benefited from his win-win dealings with China, as he is the only car company in China that is not required to partner with a native Chinese firm. In addition, over one-half of Tesla’s cars are now made in China.
In China today, it is almost impossible for any other car company to earn a profit. General Motors took a $5 billion write-off for their company late last year and is shutting down its presence in China. Others are quickly following. Yet, China, in less than one month of negotiations, loaned Musk billions of dollars to help build his Tesla car factory. They then gave him an additional billion and a half to build a factory to produce the batteries for all electronic vehicles.
So, why does China care so much for Mr. Musk? The answer is SpaceX, and specifically, a division of Space X called Starlink.
Musk’s company performs many functions for the U.S. government, both civil and military branches. Among its most secretive activities are launching classified satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office and providing encrypted communications and observational activities with Starshield, a military version of Starlink designed for government use.
America has awarded Starshield satellites billion-dollar contracts to build a network of hundreds of spy satellites. These satellites can track targets on the ground and share data with U.S. intelligence and military officials. They are an integral part of a new missile defense system we’re building to give America the potential to sense, target, and destroy nuclear missiles aimed at our cities and missile silos. They can track a missile launch from its inception. Data that guarantees America will never again face another Pearl Harbor.
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is the largest and best-funded intelligence agency nobody has ever heard of. A vital part of the American intelligence community, it is an agency of the United States Department of Defense. Its mission is to design and build reconnaissance satellites for our government. It’s also a world unto itself.
The NRO works with the Space Development Agency (SDA) as part of the United States Space Force. Their job is to provide direct reporting on all space technology. Specifically, they are tasked with putting space-based missile-tracking satellites in orbit. The U.S. Air Force manages them. They intend to have over one thousand satellites in the air by the end of next year. A centerpiece of their operation will be the Musk-owned satellite constellations used to track and detect any nuclear missile launched by an enemy against America.
Before we come to what the ramifications of all this mean to you, let’s take a quick look back to late last year when the government was almost shut down when Musk objected to the legislative bill to fund the government.
The bill was killed because it prohibited or required notification of overseas transactions involving China in sectors like the ones in which Musk was involved. A new bill was drafted and passed instead. This new bill removed those prohibitions on Musk so he could continue to build and work with the Chinese on his multi-billion plants in the People’s Republic and continue to work with the NRO to provide top-level intelligence to our missile defense systems.
It’s not as if our generals and the people they work with were blind to the threat of having Musk in charge of our most sensitive national security information. He has been refused top security clearance for his own satellite data. The Air Force and over nine of our closest allies have demanded that he not be given such clearance to Starshield’s top-secret information.
This will all change on January 20, when Trump will become our new commander-in-chief. Once that happens, a man who owes China billions of dollars will be in charge of the most important early warning system our military has against a hostile attack from the People’s Republic. If, as he’s already once threatened to do in Ukraine, he makes his Musk-owned Starlink data unavailable to us, we will be sitting ducks for potentially catastrophic attacks from our enemies.
The primary reason humans are still around in the nuclear age is the premise of mutually assured destruction. That means if you send a nuclear weapon against us, we’ll strike back. However, it’s a whole new ball game if an enemy can wipe out our retaliatory force before we know we’re at war.
Putting a man like Elon Musk in a position where he owns and operates America’s first line of nuclear defense is not only stupid but potentially fatal.
Giving Musk clearance to his company’s data means that the Chinese may have open access to it. This data is our only protection against a surprise nuclear strike. It must not be allowed to happen.
I’m not suggesting that Musk will betray us, but George Washington was positive that Benedict Arnold was a loyal American. We can’t afford to make the same mistake twice.