On October 14, 2026, SpaceX imposed an unannounced speed limit on military-grade Starshield terminals used by Ukrainian forces, automatically cutting internet connectivity for terminals moving faster than 100 mph (160 km/h) and disrupting several high-speed military drone operations.
SpaceX employees seduced by Mars missions are now supporting authoritarianism, speech suppression, electoral rigging, violent invasions, and petrocracy.
Funnily enough, some years back a recruiter came knocking for me to interview for SpaceX. I was not especially interested (not due to any particular insight to the true Musk or anything, just didn’t feel like it), and the recruitor seemed sincerely baffled why I didn’t immediately fall to the floor in awe at the possibility.
Space X has been in a list of top ten companies most engineering graduates wanted to work for. For the recruiter, you were a statistical deviation.
Yeah, at the time a huge factor was that I had like 4 years equivalent pay in bonuses that I would have had to forfeit, so a big hiring bonus would have been needed to offset that.
Plus I hate interviewing anyway.
Further I have had some experience with a “hot” employer and my experience was that they knew how coveted they are and generally had an attitude of “you should be grateful you get to work here at all” compared to a “wow, you actually are willing to work for us?” Attitude at a less well regarded employer. I have no insight on SpaceX, but direct or indirect experience with a handful of similarly “amazing” employers, so maybe SpaceX might have been different, but based on the musk treatment is twitter employees, I’m suspicious.
All this to be Elon’s serfs and concubines. What losers.
The usual sci-fi trope is that earth is the aggressor towards mars or other settlements. We need a new story about how all the wannabe Atlas Shrugged/40k mechanicum/racial preservation types go to Mars and are now being a bunch of jangoistic fascists.