Summary
Carlos Slim’s telecom giant, América Móvil, canceled $22 billion in planned Starlink orders after Elon Musk insinuated Slim had ties to drug cartels.
The decision, made within hours of Musk’s tweet, costs Musk his main partner in 25 countries and shifts business to Chinese and European competitors, further reducing U.S. commercial influence.
Musk’s increasing political entanglements and conspiracy-laden posts are alienating key business partners and consumers, with potential ripple effects on Tesla sales.
And here I was feeling good about myself after I canceled an order of 4 units for work. But every magnitude matters, I guess.
EDIT: Because starlink customer support is awful. It is a good product in theory, but because of their lack of service update, such as when they change stuff that affects us, it cannot be relied upon in production environments. And in todays political climate I simply don’t want him to get any more money from me. We managed with 2mbit VSAT before, and will do so again.
Honestly, more small orders getting cancelled is also awesome, good on you!
Thank you for your service!
I’ve never been a customer so this might be a dumb question. What does 4 units represent?
In terms of what? Cost? No idea, that’s some other departments problem.
As for use case, it is for outfitting two ships with internet access better than the usual 2-5mbit VSAT. Two antennae each to account for loss of coverage on one antenna due to the superstructure possibly getting in the way.
We use it to improve remote operation of offshore hardware, but starlink isn’t as good as it used to be. When first installing it in January 2021 it was great, 150mbit+, but as more and more people bought starlink, performance dropped significantly.