https://t.co/m0dHDLbvwd
"The higher the prevalence of infectious diseases, the higher the probability of totalitarian political attitudes" This aged well
1/ @elonmusk
In its current form, SpaceX operates inside Earth’s sovereign systems — roughly 20% of revenue from direct U.S. government contracts, plus FAA launch authority, spectrum rights, and regulatory oversight that shape every major activity. That dependence is real and structural today.
The claim that it could one day be worth more than Earth, however, only becomes coherent when we consider the future state: settlements that must eventually function as their own jurisdictions.
2/ A multi-planetary economy at that scale cannot remain permanently subject to distant terrestrial regulators, 20-minute communication lags, and Earth-based legal frameworks while building resource extraction, manufacturing, and population centers meant to exceed terrestrial GDP.
Your Starlink Terms already anticipate this reality. They frame Mars services under the premise of it being “a free planet” with no Earth-based government holding sovereignty, disputes resolved through self-governing principles developed on-site. You have also stated that Martians should decide their own rules and recommended direct democracy.
3/ The Outer Space Treaty precludes formal territorial claims, so early outposts will begin under terrestrial legal umbrellas. But once a settlement reaches self-sustaining scale, local mechanisms for property rights, resource allocation, liability, and order become unavoidable. That is jurisdiction in practice — de facto sovereignty, even if it starts as contractual autonomy.
SpaceX can deliver the transportation layer. It cannot deliver the full vision while remaining a contractor inside existing nation-state systems. Lasting value at the scale described requires the eventual emergence of off-world polities that no longer answer to Earth’s sovereigns. How do you see that jurisdictional transition actually being structured once regular landings and settlement begin?
A so-called “business partner” relationship always ends the same way.
The person initiating the idea is typically seeking to exploit access to skills or resources they cannot provide themselves.