Elon Musk’s influence over major technology companies and US government decisions is presented by Howard W. French as a more immediate danger than fears of artificial intelligence escaping human control. French argues that the wealth of a small group of technology leaders gives them growing influence over public policy and world affairs. The concern extends beyond AI itself.
Musk’s companies support US space activities, global communications and competition with China in advanced industries. French points to his role in government restructuring, access to citizens’ personal data and the reported interruption of Ukraine’s military-grade Starlink service. Responsibility for that interruption remains unclear: the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk ordered the slowdown, while Reuters reported White House involvement, which Donald Trump denied. The column also examines Musk’s proposed SpaceX share distribution to US children, tax debates involving Mark Zuckerberg and changes at Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post. French links these examples to the risk of state capture, in which private interests increasingly shape public decisions. He questions whether American civil society and democracy can resist the political influence of concentrated wealth.
Starlink illustrates how privately owned infrastructure can acquire strategic importance when military communications depend on a commercial provider. The system’s value lies in connectivity across dispersed users and operating areas, including circumstances where conventional communications are difficult to sustain. Yet commercial ownership places technical control outside the ordinary military chain of command. The distinction becomes consequential when service availability affects an active conflict.
The mechanism is a gap between operational dependence and decision authority. Military users may rely on a service without controlling every decision governing access, restrictions or continuity. If a provider can alter availability, commanders’ practical options may change before the public understands who authorised the decision. The competing accounts cited by Foreign Policy expose this accountability problem: uncertainty over responsibility makes it difficult to distinguish a corporate decision from a government-directed action. That uncertainty itself complicates assessments of control over a military capability.
Starlink therefore raises a question of institutional design rather than technology alone. The service can extend military communications while creating dependence on decisions made beyond the user’s direct command structure. Ukraine’s reported disruption shows why commercial connectivity and sovereign control can become competing considerations in wartime.
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