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.
The problem is that Ariane 6 is already an obsolete previous-gen design, not one part is reusable. SpaceX is the dominant launch provider for a very solid reason and ultimately the only way to compete with them is going to be to adopt their ideas and methodologies.