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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has defended her government’s talks with Elon Musk’s SpaceX over a potential deal to provide secure military communications, saying the Starlink system has “no public alternative”.
Meloni, who has developed a strong personal bond with Musk, insisted she had not spoken to him directly about a deal, and said Italian government talks with SpaceX were still “in the preliminary stage”.
“I assess foreign contracts with only one lens — national interest — not of friendship or the political ideas of the investors,” the Italian premier told a news conference on Thursday.
Italy has been looking to strengthen secure communications to its estimated 7,000 troops deployed overseas. It could take years to get Europe’s own satellite initiative up and running.
But opposition parties and some strategic policy analysts are up in arms over the potential $1.5bn, five-year defence deal with Starlink, especially given Musk’s growing ties with Europe’s far-right.
The EU signed a €10.6bn deal last month to develop a European satellite network to rival Musk’s Starlink but the new system will not operate until 2030 at the earliest.
Meloni said that, while she considered dependence on a private player to be less than ideal, no public alternatives were yet available to meet Italy’s needs, whereas SpaceX had already demonstrated the technology.
“Is the problem with SpaceX the fact that it’s a private company, or the political ideas of Elon Musk?” she asked.
“I’m a layman in this debate . . . but if [sensitive] information falls into the wrong hands tomorrow, the government is responsible, so I can’t pretend the problem doesn’t exist.”
The political furore over a potential SpaceX deal comes amid growing concern across Europe over Musk’s involvement in the domestic politics of US allies.
Musk had raised expectations of a large donation to Nigel Farage’s Reform party in the UK, and has been talking with like-minded associates about how to oust Sir Keir Starmer as UK prime minister, according to people familiar with the discussions. Musk has also openly endorsed Germany’s far-right AfD in its upcoming elections, whose leader Alice Weidel he was set to interview on his media platform X on Thursday.
However, Meloni dismissed the idea that Musk posed “a danger to democracy”, describing him as merely a “very rich person who is expressing his opinions”.
Meloni said she was “not a supporter of commenting on other people’s politics”, but did not think Musk was interfering in nations’ politics.
“The problem is when rich people use resources to finance associations and politicians halfway around the world to influence the political choices of nation states,” she said during the nearly three-hour-long press conference.
“This is not done by Elon Musk . . . this is done by [US philanthropist] George Soros, for example, and yes, I consider it a dangerous interference in the affairs of nation states and the sovereignty of nation states.”
Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi
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