Starlink installation in federal institutions, official presentation in front of a Tesla on the forecourt of the White House, calls for investment... The closeness between Donald Trump and his great supporter Elon Musk continues to cause a stir, in a context where the President of the United States regularly promotes the billionaire's companies.
And this situation is beginning to have very concrete repercussions for the tycoon's entrepreneurial empire, including in Europe: according to TheNextWeb, these controversies have pushed Italy to suspend a particularly lucrative contract project with SpaceX.
Italy cooled by Elon Musk
For some time now, our neighbors have been exploring different avenues to implement an encrypted satellite communication system in their administration. The objective: to allow representatives working in sensitive areas to exchange strategic information while limiting the risk of leaks.
Giorgia Meloni's government seemed determined to rely on Starlink, SpaceX's web constellation, to build this strategic infrastructure. A choice that is not particularly surprising, given that it is currently the most extensive and mature constellation in the industry. The deal was apparently well underway, with the two parties in deep discussions about a major contract $1.5 billion.
But Elon Musk's antics seem to have given the opposition some pretty powerful new arguments, so much so that the project seems to have been suspended. "Everything is at a standstill, partly because the topic has shifted from Starlink to Musk's statements," Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in an interview with La Repubblica.
A boon for Eutelsat?
But that doesn't mean the Italian government has abandoned its initial goal. It could simply turn to another company... and that may be good news for Eutelsat OneWeb, whose name was also mentioned during these discussions.
Eutelsat and OneWeb were once two French and British companies that merged in 2023, thus combining the former's geostationary constellation with the latter's low-orbit satellites.
This new entity, called Eutelsat One Web, is certainly less well-known than SpaceX, notably because it is not targeting the consumer market at all and focuses on businesses and governments. Its fleet is also smaller, with a few hundred satellites compared to more than 7,000 for Starlink. But it is still a heavyweight in the sector with very serious arguments, starting with the fact that it is a entity 100% European. A point that is anything but negligible, in a context where Europe is actively seeking to strengthen its technological and strategic autonomy since the invasion of Ukraine and the election of Donald Trump.
It will therefore be necessary to follow the development of this half-technological, half-political issue, which could constitute a significant precedent in the strategic map of Italy, but also of Europe as a whole.
0 Comments