a conglomerate that has eaten up the separation of powers

SpaceX just bought xAI. On paper it may seem like it is one more merger in Musk’s empire. But put it all together and you will see that it is something else.

All of that now operates under the same roof. And it is not a normal conglomerate. It is more similar to what in other centuries the Indian companies: private entities but with almost sovereign capabilities. Those had armies, Musk has rockets, telecommunications infrastructure that operates globally, control of information flows and public discussions, and access to military intelligence.

The difference is that empires could dissolve these companies when they became problematic.. Here it is the other way around. The West has outsourced so many sensitive things, from space launches to conflict connectivity to satellites to intelligence processing, that setting limits on Musk is shooting yourself in the foot.

How are you going to regulate the guy who launches spy satellites at you, keeps you connected in war and processes your classified data?

Each individual step never raised suspicions because they have always made sense:

But no one designed this as a system. It has been happening alone, contract after contract. And now you have a private player with more operational capacity in certain domains than some countries.

It is not a monopoly that you can chop up. It is critical infrastructure concentrated in someone who also controls media speakers, has direct political capital and operates in the regulatory limbo of the space. Separating that has much more to do with geopolitics than with telecoms or competition. What government is going to dare to take for granted the person who handles its military communications?

The merger with xAI only makes visible what already existed. Musk did not need to formally bring the companies together because they already shared data, engineers and infrastructure. To put it in black on white is to publicly admit what was operating in the shadows: a conglomerate with strategic scope that goes beyond what liberal democracies designed as possible for a private actor.

The West has gotten itself into this trap. No one has forced him and he cannot point the finger at a Chinese president or shift responsibility to an external threat. He wanted rapid innovation while keeping costs low, so he handed over sensitive capabilities to someone who is now too big to touch without hurting you.

The incentives were right at the beginning. It is no longer clear that they continue to fit. But it doesn’t matter. We passed the point of no return a long time ago.

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Featured image | SpaceX