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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tonya Mosley.

The day-to-day headlines about billionaire Elon Musk are almost always about Tesla or changes

to Twitter, now rebranded as X. But a new expose by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Faroe

explores the quiet growth of Musk's power and influence through his space exploration company

SpaceX, which provides internet service through its satellite company Starlink.

To put this in perspective, it's estimated that more than 8,000 active satellites are spinning

around the earth, and more than half of them are controlled by Elon Musk, providing internet

connections to more than 60 countries. This past June, Musk signed a contract with the Department

of Defense to continue providing service to Ukraine, which has been instrumental on the battlefield

in its war with Russia. Ronan Faroe's new report in the New Yorker explores the geopolitical

consequences of Musk's growing power, including how the U.S. government has come to rely heavily

on him. Ronan Faroe is an investigative reporter and a contributing writer to the New Yorker.

He won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the sexual assault allegations against movie producer

Harvey Weinstein, which propelled the Me Too movement. His latest film endangered on HBO

about the threats to journalists is nominated for an Emmy. Faroe is currently producing a film

about the use of commercial spyware. His article Elon Musk's Shadow Rule is in this week's issue

of the New Yorker, and Ronan Faroe, welcome to Fresh Air. Such a pleasure to be here, Tonya.

Yes, a pleasure to have you, and thank you for this reporting. You know, you make a point to say

that there's nothing wrong with the relationship between a private individual like Elon Musk and

government leadership, but what your investigation is interrogating is actually how government agencies

...