How President Trump Screwed Rural Americans to Help Musk Become a Trillionaire

On the run-up to SpaceX’s historic initial public offering on June 12, commentators worried about who would get hurt. Their top concern was for everyday retirement savers: Major stock index providers like NASDAQ had changed their own rules to fast-track SpaceX’s inclusion in their market measures. These unusual moves would force holders of plain vanilla index funds to buy into a risky, unproven stock. Others fretted about impressionable retail investors who might sink money into Musk’s grand vision only to get burned by marke​t​ volatility. But these are speculative victims, losers only if SpaceX stock plummets. There’s another group, however, that has definitely suffered real harm on the road to Musk’s becoming a trillionaire: Americans in the nation’s most rural communities. For decades, they have lived without the high-speed broadband service that the rest of us take for granted. This “digital divide” was set to close thanks to a federal program created by the Biden administration. But at ​​Musk’s urging, the Trump administration sabotaged the effort, changing the rules to funnel money toward Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet subsidiary, while diverting billions of dollars from higher-quality competitors. This ​intervention​ helped shore up SpaceX’s rickety balance sheet. It is also forcing slower, ​​​less reliable​, and likely costlier broadband on rural Americans.