Call me crazy but does anyone else just see all the musk companies as the elements of a SALTII/ITAR violation? Like one single, pre-established violation?It's like he's read the book on things you aren't allowed to build and decided he's Tony stark or mr house and is destined to build one.
wat?
>>65602893Pinocchio Boy would not do any mischief with his privately owned ICBMs, I'm sure.
>>65602893There’s no treaty to violate. SALT II was never ratified and would be long expired by now. New START, which was the current treaty, expired early this year. There’s not likely to be a new one in the foreseeable future as Russia isn’t trustworthy and China isn’t interested.
>>65602893Just nationalize all of musk's companies and deport him. That would solve a lot of the current problems and potential future ones he'll create.
>>65602895Well if each project has a bizarre an unrealistic goal to attract investment, what has musk actually built in each case which is marketable? They are ALL ITAR violations, illegal arms exports, bar none, every single one of them. And the investors are probably more then aware of this, and that's the whole point. And if each project is an illegal arms export program, could it be that they are all physical components of the same system? There would seem to be no reason any of them are interoperable in their marketed form, but the obvious inference is that it's a single fly by wire system sold as six seperate civilian products, which on paper are all ITAR violations in and of themselves.
>>65602901Lol no, never happening, cope and seethe.
Are there still stupid people that think starship is a viable ICBM.
>>65602905Launch vehicles aren't getting exported and electric cars aren't weapons, what the fuck are you talking about?
>>65602897If it was just a DoD missile program that's the whole of NASA, the US didn't need another one. No this was the CIA trying to develop SALTII system the DoD is currently trying to curtail.>>65602901If musk had any actual control you could, but if musk dies who actually amalgamates the companies? It's not actually the US government, nor is it the controlling share members. Think postwar Rhinemetal.
>>65602893Do you think rocketdyne abd ULA are also breaking ITAR?Every US rocket has been produced to private business, some were just designed by NASA before being built by a private company.
>>65602910Not an ICBM, no. The US already has enough of those and NASA already builds reusable boosters so it's not one of those either.
>>65602922ITAR is like, you may not, for any reason, design or export a system which is, can or can be adapted to do X.Like chemical weapons most of the things listed are only listed because they are assumed components of something else and typical of these treaties it's never explicitly stated what it is specifically the end product of that technology chain.
>>65602919I'm running under the assumption that within the next 4 years, musk won't magically fall out of a six story building, which seems to be a problem with russian stooges under putin and he'll still be alive. So wrestling power from him directly is the best way to keep everything relatively intact instead of having everything already broken up between the various factions, which is important given how he's integrated himself into the US military. >Think postwar Rhinemetal.First or Second?
>>65602901>>65602919>if musk dies who actually amalgamates the companies?Have you checked the shareholding, voting powers, and the board of directors for each company? And who are Musk's heirs?This is literally Business 101, often covered within the very first week of any good business diploma>It's not actually the US government, nor is it the controlling share membersAnd why not?No doubt the US government has the right to step in and enact extraordinary powers to seize a company, but they'd have to have either the backing of the courts or Congress, and it's exactly the same as any other company. Force majeure is the Government's ultima ratio regum.A lot of companies were forcibly taken over by the Government, or de facto taken control of through special regulations passed through Congress / Parliament, during the wars, not just Rheinmetall.But that doesn't mean Musk's companies would need to be taken over in that way.
>>65602905>bizarre and unrealistic goal to attract investmentThis is his entire business model, anything beyond that is unnecessary to explain his companies' behaviour and apparent priorities. He sets a ludicrous goal or puts on a borderline fraudulent investor show because it sounds impressive to investors, who then invest in the companies. That's it. All of the third party owners of his stock are either gullible idiots or institutional investors who realise that the show he puts on will attract said gullible idiots and, therefore, increase the share price. This is why there's such a high proportion of retail investors, because retail, by and large, is really fucking thick when it comes to stock picking.Some of the underlying technology in Tesla and SpaceX is impressive, but ultimately the business relies far more on attracting further investors than it does on delivering on any concrete goals.
>>65602955>ultimately the business relies far more on attracting further investors than it does on delivering on any concrete goals.Tech companies historically have very long breakeven periods. Amazon might be regarded as quite successful, yet it was incorporated in 1994 and arguably only began looking profitable (adjusting for all the long years of bleeding capital and needing constant capital top-ups with all those operating losses) somewhere around 2017 or 2019, depending on the metric used. So you'd realistically have to give Musk's companies at least 2 decades before they start really raking it in.
>>65602947Well this takes some understanding of Realpolitik and who actually possess something vs who legally owns it and what can and can't practically be seized.If the DoD rolls tanks into spacex or someone shoots musk they only take the program. What they have not got is the power to prevent proliferation. And that's specifically the SALT concern.If musk tries to actually build something the DoD would actually have to seize, it would only be because musk could deliver the program to Russia or more likely, china.There's a very, very strange similarity between spacex and the chinese/nk/Iranian joint SCUD-XI program. I'm actually going to say musk holds technology which either the US or China could deploy immediately and that's why nobody has stopped him. It's not like the Chinese ever cared who owned what, nor the Russians after ww2 or the US after Hiroshima.
>>65603014>this takes some understanding of Realpolitik and who actually possess something vs who legally owns it and what can and can't practically be seizedNo doubtI'm failing to see what's the major objection here though.Supermarine would not have been able to keep their Spitfire plans or factories all to themselves and tell the Government to butt out. Neither does Lockheed-Martin do that. And neither did Hercules, nor Boeing, nor Thiokol, AVCO, et al. in the history of the US ICBM programme.In a Western capitalist democracy, the line between de facto state body and private equity is very blurry, and this is virtually as old as the Western capitalist democratic system. Arguably, MIC profits are basically the salaries paid to them by the government to run military development and production programmes which the government itself does not have the expertise to run.
>>65603000Yes, but Amazon spent those years showing investors how effectively it could operate as a logistics network and aggressively confronting competitors. They focused on business fundamentals. Tesla, on the other hand, rakes in investor money through stunts like the fake robots or the magic space datacentres or the "flying car" with no battery. Musk puts out a steady stream of aspirational sci-fi bullshit to reel in investors, meanwhile the company has squandered its early lead in electric vehicles to established car companies and new Chinese companies, both of whom are now starting to produce affordable and reliable electric cars.Without the dog and pony show he wouldn't have a stock price that's totally divorced from reality he wouldn't have a business, and I see no indication that there's a sustainable one developing behind the scenes either. If anything there's plenty of signs it's getting less sustainable.
>>65603000I think piracy is a pretty well established business plan. Musk using bitcoin as a pyramid scheme to raise infinity dollars of unpayable primary capitol, sinking it into companies which really just force the capitol into the share market, this only resolves itself if musk builds a cannon and renders his debts moot through piracy.Come on, this was the whole iron Man plot, and every other movie since the cold war. Private investors build a super weapon to take over the world.
>>65603020If musk was just a front for the US government nobody would care. Kim jong has nukes and nobody really cares. NASA is just a front for ICBM development and always was and if all musk was doing was building the American answer to china's joint ICBM program nobody would care either. The issue here is that the Americans are failing to prevent the proliferation of ITAR systems, because musk is putting them as prizes in boxes of cereal.
>>65603034>They focused on business fundamentals. Tesla, on the other hand, rakes in investor money through stuntsWell, I remember a lot of naysaying in the post-dotcom crash era>the company has squandered its early lead in electric vehicles to established car companies and new Chinese companies, both of whom are now starting to produce affordable and reliable electric carsI'm somewhat familiar with the Chinese EV situation. It's heavily government subsidised. Tesla would be equally mind-blowingly successful if the US Government would mandate overnight that all inner-city public transport must use EVs. (Tesla shares would probably limit up several times on the back of that announcement.)It'd actually SpaceX that is doing very well. Tesla is dodgy, yes, but it's really more politically-impacted in the US than anything else, and they have strong overseas presence actually. If the Europeans don't go the Chinese route and don't come up with a competing EV soon, Tesla might well be quids in.
>>65603038>Musk using bitcoin as a pyramid scheme to raise infinity dollars...what?>every other movie since the cold war. Private investors build a super weapon to take over the world.Only because Hollywood is a bunch of liberal pinko retards who would have sold out to the USSR in a heartbeat. Studios are one of the most corrupt industries in the world, engaging in rampant pseudo-legal book-cooking, they are throwing stones from blown-glass houses.>>65603044>the Americans are failing to prevent the proliferation of ITAR systems, because muskHow's that?Personally I'm more concerned with Lockmart's inventory tracking system.
>>65602893>SALTIISALT II was superseded by START I in 1991.START I expired on 5 December 2009On 4 May 2009, the U.S. and Russia began renegotiating STARTwas signed by Obama and Medvedev in Moscow on 6 July 2009would expire in 2019was extended by 5 years after both parties agreed to extend itbut Russia withdrew in 2023Which is to say: START II is fucking done and nobody cares about any of that or the decades of followup bullshti any more because Russia just lies and cheats, and treaties with Russia are not worth the paper they are written on.>ITARHas largely become an instrument to control US markets, and keep IP in US hands. Eroding protectionist barriers to free trade like this one is objectively a good thing.
>>65603067>G2G arms trade>free marketLolLmao
>>65602931US citizens designing a weapon in the US is not an ITAR violation. ITAR restricts exports. If Musk sold a dual use orbital rocket or its design details to China he'd be Maduro's roommate. Unless he got a loicense to do so, of course.SALT and all of its successor treaties have expired can therefore cannot be violated.
>>65603067Failure of bilateral arms control talks would strongly indicate both the need for them, and that someone.... maybe musk....had developed one. And ITAR isn't about commercial IP it's a military inteligence control of strategic arms, which in 2026 increasingly applies to digital infrastructure, fly by wire, autonomous weapons programs and strictly intangible EW assets. China, Russia, they can just steal anything they like and so can the US, ITAR is to stop non state entities selling strategic arms to terrorists.
>>65603098>China, Russia, they can just steal anything they likeWhich results in ITAR hobbling and punishing legitimate trade with and interest of US allies, and not US adversaries.
>>65603085>G2G arms tradelast time I checked LM, Boeing, SpaceX or Raytheon are not the US government
>>65603098>...had developed oneOne what, you schizophrenic retard?>A potential orbital bombardment systemYes, obviously, just like NASA and everyone else did decades ago. Only launched with government approval using government approved payloads.>A satellite communications and surveillance system of unprecedented scaleYes, again, under the oversight and license of a bunch of federal agencies>Robots, electric cars, high-performance batteries, AI models, etc, etc. dual use technologyYes, again, under oversight and in compliance>Space-based fly by wire digital infrastructure autonomous treaty and export violationsTake your meds
>>65603110It hobbles bloody terrorists who try to buy Walmart nukes, EW assets and autonomous drones to commit global terror and extortion.American and Chinese state piracy is bad enough, now Iranian, isreali, Turkish, middle power pirates are using itar technology to ransom oil traffic in Oman, Yemen.Shit why doesn't Joe Rogan buy a medium range autonomous EW drone to threaten CNN. Without ITAR everyone would be strapping Styrofoam glibe bombs onto the roof of their car and passive guiding them as cars on spoofed civilian GPS and performing touchdown strikes on other motorists who cut lanes.
>>65603112They can't sell arms without US Government approval. And in fact, the vast bulk of their so-called international arms trade business is actually supplying arms to the US Government in order to fulfill the US Government's international arms trade. That's in fact how their contracts are written: not "we are selling Patriot missiles to Japan", but actually "we are selling Patriot missiles to the US Government (who will then sell them to Japan)". This is important for establishing who the company is contractually-obligated to; in that case, the US Government, not the Japanese Government.
>>65603126I don't think these are stupid concerns, given musks companies are already arms companies contracted to DoD, given the generally unlawful basis the Ukraine/russia war is being fought on, the fact ITAR arms are already all over Ukraine in the hands of CIA minders, special forces, paras and so obviously, any terrorist in the region could get access to them. And of all the things embargoed, musk happens to actually possess most of them so if anyone is going to traffic or deploy a SALT weapon, it would be musk.Musk could use spacex to launch a nuke, on a re-entry vehicle nobody could really shoot down, on his own global military satellite network, simply to be a pirate. He's already the world's richest man on paper, if anyone would try to take over the world it would tend to be him.
>>65603148ITAR arms is a very scary phrase for people that don't know that it includes things like ACOGs, gas masks, and every fully automatic firearm.
>>65603167Is musk building you flamethrowers or ICBM now? We are no longer talking about trivial small arms, a German airport got hit with an EW hardened drone and they can't even work out if it really was Russian origin.
>>65603139>It hobbles bloody terrorists who try to buy Walmart nukesI don't think ITAR hobbles Pakistan handing nukes to terrorists.
>>65603183>Every bad thing that happens is the doing of the arch-devil Elon Musk
>>65602911The REAL product is obviously either an electric vehicle that unfolds to TRANSFORM into a heavy-lift launch vehicle!Or maybe a Starship, a couple EVs, and a TBM combine to FORM MUSKTRON!
>>65602893Makes Musk even more based. SALT is gay as fuck.
>>65602893I think he genuinely believes or used to believe in his Mars colonization life mission. All his projects and companies aim to create technologies that will be necessary for it. Even this stupid rocket car is nothing more than counter to low gravity on Mars.
>>65603342ZUCKERNATOR SUPERIOR MUSKTRON INFERIOR
>>65603374>windmills>not coalI get it, but it could be better.
>>65602893Billionaires and monopolies are a function of the state - they exist as a policy of statecraft.It allows for concentration of assets (financial, IP, etc) that has less oversight than if overtly in public hands. More easily to move money around.Musk came from a family that owned emerald mines in Africa. This sociopath pedigree from birth coupled with slight down syndrome retardation makes Musk a good candidate to become a walking talking money laundering operation where state funds can be funneled into corporations like tesla, space x, twitter, etc.
>>65603139>Without ITAR everyone would be strapping Styrofoam glibe bombs onto the roof of their carSHALL NOT
>>65602924>so it's not one of those eitheryeah, it is, and it's replacing falcon 9>NASA already builds reusable boosterscorrection, spacex already builds reusable boosters.
>>65604141I wish some hero anon would drone strike the 4chan servers.
>>65602955this post is some serious EDS cope.FSD is here and works, starlink is here and works, tesla cars are here and work, falcon 9 is one of the most succesful and profitable rockets ever built.are you high or do you not understand that companies generally keep expanding if they think they have room in the market to do so and can make the investment money back later?
>>65603770>le emerald mine storyhis dad owned stock in an emerald mine for a short period time and never really made any money with it, why are you repeating that BS story?>down syndrome retardationthe level of fucking hubris required to claim that musk has down syndrome is impressive, even for an EDS sufferer.i'm sorry spacex is succesful, i'm sorry tesla is succesful, i hope you get over that chip on your shoulder one day.
>>65603770>less oversightWhen's the last time you read company annual reports, and when did you read Government annual reports?At this point the government is more opaque by far, effectively
>>65604151>>65604159Oh look, it's the muskrat fanboiEMWNBAE
>>65606083>living in objective reality is being a muskrat fanboyweird crashout ngl, are you the same guy that has a meltdown every time elon musk is mentioned?>i-i don't like that elon is an engineer!that's okay, your consent is and was never required for him to be an engineer.
>>65606097>are you the same guy that has a meltdown every time elon musk is mentioned?No, that would be you thougbeit
>>65606112>n-noyeah, it's you, you frantically search the board for any instances of musk being called an engineer and start crying.i hope you recover from your EDS some day, son.
>>65602893>ITAR violation?It is technically but the US Gov has chosen to waive it for SpaceX's support of Ukraine.
>>65602893>SALTCovered nuclear warheads and delivery systems thereof. Not applicable to non-nuclear payloads even back in the '70s and '80s.>ITARApplies to exports of military or dual-use technology. As long as SpaceX doesn't export its technology, it isn't in violation of ITAR. Even launching other nations' commercial payloads is not a violation unless you're helping them to improve said payloads, e.g., the way Loral et al helped the PRC fix its bus problems back in the '90s which directly led to improvements in PLA ICBMs.
>>65602898>>65602919>>65603357>>65606406Opinion on this rather detailed analysis for a comprehensive shield against near-peer deterrence?https://newsletter.forethought.org/p/space-weapons-could-shut-others-out
>>65606883I don't like how it handwaves away a kessler syndrome retaliation instigated by a near-peer country that feels their MAD is existentially threatened by a sudden, unstoppable breakout of an orbital interceptor constellation.Yes, the launch-leader can then create a medium orbit constellation, but that pushes the interception time to tens of minutes which is too long of a window for ICBM launches. Additionally, it significantly cuts down on the interception rates purely because of increased technical challenges (Author dismisses this issue by invoking magical AI as a solution)I just find it incredibly hubristic to even posit that major players would idly sit on their hands and let their MAD response systems be significantly degraded.
>>65606140yea
>>65606965>I just find it incredibly hubristic to even posit that major players would idly sit on their hands and let their MAD response systems be significantly degraded.Have you seen the British and French deterrent recently? How few warheads they have, how few defences for their deterrents, and how far they have stretched the deterrent force?
>>65608197They still have a workable triad; mostly carried by subs. In any case, I wasn't talking about US vassal lapdogs, my concern was the reaction of Russia and China.
>>65608599KYS vassalfag
>>65608197there's nothing wrong with the French deterrentthey have the nukes they'd need to reduce the top 10 urban centers of every country that could attack them. plus their fuck off the next ones are going on your urban centers nuclear warning bombs. all 100% domestic
>>65608614>fuck off the next ones are going on your urban centers nuclear warning bombsI must admit I rather like those>there's nothing wrong with the French deterrentthey don't have enough defensive assets to protect one (1) continuous at-sea submarine from being foundideally, like the Russians attempted, you'd want a large patch of ocean to be secured with multiple assets and sufficient assets to follow enemy assets, and the SSBN would stay inside that ocean without anyone (not even your forces) knowing exactly where it is
>>65608646that's why they are currently building the nuclear attack subs to do just that
>>65608649they have only five SSNs in service. if they dedicated the entire submarine force to deterrent defence they would still not be able to do all the tasks I described.
>>65608652>they don't have enough of x>they are building more of x>but they don't have enough of xyour problem also assumes that their adversary can find their boomers leaving port, track them and then attack them.
>>65608662>they don't have enough of x>they are building more of x>but they don't have enough of xbecause the planned number of SSNs is still insufficient, leaving aside the question of non-deterrent-related tasks SSNs should be doinghow difficult is it to understand this?>your problem also assumes that their adversary can find their boomers leaving port, track them and then attack themwe were doing it to the Soviets and they have attempted to do it to us, sometimes successfully
>>65608652SSN is not SSBN.Which 32 cities do you not need to use again.Big boom hiding.
>>65608674the russians and chinks aren't the US or the Soviets
>>65602893>SALTIINever ratified, and the Russians were violating it anyway, so it died.>ITAR violationHe's not exporting his rockets, so there is no violation.
>>65608699I'll put this as simple as I canthe chinks have the numbers and the money, but not the technology; however, they are impgoving their technology faster than NATO is mobilising>>65608687>SSN is not SSBNyou've lost the thread of the discussion
>>65606965A Kessler takes time to spread the debris out and begin whacking everything in its orbit. If somebody starts one, that's a good indication that they intend to launch a first strike and should be nuked into oblivion while the Pebbles are still operational.That said, the article's premise--that the US could use Pebbles to interdict anyone's *satellite launches* feels rather weak. Technically? Sure, if you can intercept massed ICBMs with space-based weapons, then you should easily be able to interdict orbital boosters. Diplomatically, however, this would assume a *very* different worldview, which is highly unlikely for the US to switch to. The PRC *might* try it if they could, but any attempt to do so would likely kick off a nuclear war with the US, which does have atmospheric alternatives it could use, so they probably wouldn't.
Putting kinetic weapons in space is a Cuban Crisis-tier escalation because it drastically reduces the reaction time that ABM defences have, hence it is grounds for immediate WMD response.Therefore it won't happen unless one side has already basically given up the deterrent race, in which case that side has already lost.
