Are Musk’s Politics Jeopardizing Starlink’s Dominance?

While most of the world’s people have access to the internet via a high-speed network, about a third of them — more than 2 billion people — still don’t. And even in countries well-equipped with ground-based broadband, there are often places that are too remote for it. Plus access can be cut off by natural disasters or conflict.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink network aims to narrow those gaps. It has launched thousands of small satellites that zip around the globe in what’s known as low-Earth orbit (LEO), making it possible to connect places that lack ground-based broadband. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.com Inc. has a similar initiative in the works called Project Kuiper, which expects to begin serving customers this year. Meanwhile, China and European nations are backing their own rival LEO systems for fear of being shut out of a critical future technology. This new space race has become increasingly political given Musk’s close alliance with US President Donald Trump, whose policies have heightened tensions between the US and many other countries.