Elon Musk’s Quest to Own the Stars

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Satellites owned by Elon Musk’s Starlink orbit the earth and beam an internet connection to almost anywhere. In 2019, the company sent its first 60 or so satellites into orbit — today, it has some 4,500 circling the planet, with around 1.5 million customers across about 50 countries and territories. Adam Satariano, a technology correspondent for The Times, details the company’s rise and power, and discusses the implications of one man’s controlling it all.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavern, you see, and this is the Daily.
0:12.0	Star Lake, the satellite communication company owned by Elon Musk, has quietly and quickly
0:18.1	encircled the Earth.
0:19.7	Today, my colleague Adam Ceturiano, on the story of Starling's rise, its revolutionary promise,
0:27.9	and on the implications of one man controlling it all.
0:33.3	It's Wednesday, August 9th.
0:49.9	Adam, welcome to the show.
0:51.7	Thank you for having me.
0:53.6	So Adam, tell us where this reporting that you've done on Starlink started for you.
0:59.6	Part of it is just geeky curiosity.
1:02.1	I learned about this technology, which is essentially satellites orbiting the Earth, which are beaming
1:07.2	an internet connection down to just about anywhere on Earth.
1:12.6	It just seems like this kind of amazing technology, particularly when you think of all the
1:17.8	parts of the Earth that don't have internet connection.
1:21.1	And then you add in the fact that it's controlled by Elon Musk.
1:25.0	We know Elon from Tesla, of course, and now from his ownership of Twitter.
1:29.8	That's X to you.
1:31.0	X, sorry.
1:33.0	And his social media antics and outbursts and petty fights that he gets into online.
1:39.9	But it was fascinating to see that even more so, he is controlling this new, incredibly
1:46.3	important area of communication and satellite internet.
1:51.7	And so a group of colleagues and I wanted to understand the scale of this.
	...

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