Democrats Want to Punish Elon Musk. Nationalizing SpaceX Would Punish Innovation.
Robert Reich says Democrats should lay the groundwork to nationalize Starlink and SpaceX, but taking over a successful tech company would risk escalation with Russia and chill innovation without helping Ukraine.
Elon Musk is under attack! Countless Democrats are admitting they plan to investigate or even jail him if they take back power on Congress in the midterms. They can't tell you what he specifically did wrong, but they'll come up with something.
Just as bad, or even worse, however, is that some of his critics want to nationalize his companies, including Starlink, which provides crucial infrastructure to Ukraine. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a far-left populist Democrat, thinks Starlink is too important to be left under Musk's control, and that the federal government would do a better job administering it. I doubt that, but let's hear what he had to say:
NEW: Robert Reich calls for the "defunding" of Elon Musk, calls for Democrats to go after Musk's companies.
"Democrats ought to [start] laying the groundwork for nationalizing Starlink & SpaceX… It should be a public corporation."
Does he want Musk to drop another $50M on the… pic.twitter.com/0jiljf0CtG
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 25, 2026
From the horse's mouth: Reich thinks Democrats should be laying the groundwork to nationalize Starlink and SpaceX. This idea is crazy and reckless—and even dangerous. Here's why.
Now it's important to go over some of the background here. Starlink is a product that Ukraine uses to provide internet to its people, but only for civilian uses. Musk has maintained that while he is very happy to provide internet to Ukraine in the face of unrelenting invasion, Starlink cannot be used for offensive military purposes, because this would make his satellites a legitimate target of Russia in terms of their war effort. We want to avoid that. Separately, Starshield, a different system, is administered by the Pentagon, and Musk claims he has no control over it.
What happened last week is that a slowdown of the Starshield system resulted in reduced effectiveness of Ukraine's counterstrikes against Russia. And look, that was a problem. I traveled to Ukraine earlier this summer as part of a delegation arranged by a pro-Ukrainian nonprofit. I saw up close how important Starshield is to the defense of a free Ukraine. Moreover, there's entirely too much griping about Ukraine coming from some corners of right-wing media. Some people often seem to forget that Russia is invading Ukraine, not the other way around. It's Russia that won't accept a peace deal. When President Donald Trump called for an immediate ceasefire, Ukraine stopped hitting energy infrastructure in Russia—but Russia kept attacking anyway. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has agreed to immediately stop fighting and freeze the conflict along the current lines, just like Trump wants. It's Russian President Vladimir Putin who won't negotiate.
We don't know for sure who ordered the Starshield slowdown. The U.S. government has denied doing so. Musk has, however, claimed Ukraine violated the terms of service of Starlink, using it for offensive military purposes, and thus that system was slowed down. I understand why that might be frustrating for the Ukrainians, but the fact is that it's Musk's company, so he makes the rules. It belongs to him.
And importantly, it has to stay that way. Nationalizing the company would be an insane step to take in response to a tech owner having a say in how his product is used. Do we really trust the government to operate these companies as efficiently as their founders? Of course not. Moreover, in this specific case, it might bring us closer to a direct confrontation with Russia—and as much as it's a good thing to undermine the Russian conquest of Ukraine, we do not want to start World War III.
And there are the broader philosophical harms. We are experiencing an unprecedented flourishing in the tech space, with AI, driverless cars, robotics, and such. When the government nationalizes a successful tech company, it sends a warning to all the others: If you're too good at what you do, we might take you over. We might punish you. This disincentivizes investment and innovation at a time when they're desperately needed.
Nationalizing Musk's companies is doing Ukraine no favors. But it will hurt America's interests too. We want to encourage Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, and all the rest to compete with one another to design products that make life better, earning them profits along the way. It doesn't work if the government butts in. Unfortunately, far-left thinkers like Reich, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), and many of the people who are about to be elected to Congress for the first time actually want to slow down the pace of tech. That's how much they hate Musk.