What would a Starlink IPO mean for Elon Musk’s geopolitical clout?

Make Me Smart November 15, 2023 Transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

Do not disturb. I accidentally left my. Okay here we go.

Kai Ryssdal

Jayk you are kidding me man what was that?

Kimberly Adams

So much for our small talk. Okay. Wow. Well, hello, everyone. I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart where we are clearly unprepared and Jayk was on it. But here is where we try to make today make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m Kai Ryssdal. Wednesday today the 15th of November. Man, that was pretty funny. That was pretty funny.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes it was. Short and sweet today we’re gonna do some news and some smiles. So let’s get into it. Kai, what you got?

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. All right. My entire program today is all space. It’s space in the news. And it’s space in the make me smile. So two things, both of which are original Bloomberg items. Well, one of which is publicly announced, but the other one, which was a Bloomberg report today. So Bloomberg reported today that SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, of course, is going to spin off Starlink, which is its, you know, ubiquitous, small satellite program, which is brining internet to people in India and in lesser developed parts of the world, but also, as you’ve heard on this podcast, has been used geopolitically in Crimea and the Russia Ukraine war, and also in Israel and Gaza. Anyway. So Bloomberg reports that, sorry, gotta get the dog, come on. Come on, also, because it’s raining outside and it’s cold. And then once you open the door again, anyway, so Bloomberg reports that SpaceX is going to spin Starlink off at some point in the next 18 or so months, I should say here that Reuters further reports that sorry, dog number two, I’m just gonna leave the door open, even though it’s cold and wet. Reuters further reports that Elon Musk has denied it. But without much specificity. He just says false. So you know, take that for what it’s worth. Here’s why I bring it up. I’ve been critical of of Musk and of the company that he runs and owns, basically, for his dabbling companies. Yes, SpaceX and Starlink, specifically for his dabbling in geopolitics. And his how to put this, his unawareness of what he’s doing. Bright guy could change the planet, but really just questioning the motivations. Anyway, I wonder if Starlink being a publicly traded company, even if perhaps completely owned by SpaceX? I don’t know, like, majority of them might change that. And if so, that would be great. And I just sort of wanted to float that out there. Because maybe that would, you know, change things with the way that company is being used, which troubles me deeply. So that’s number one. Number two,

Kimberly Adams 

Why do you think that might change things? I don’t understand.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well once you’re a publicly traded company, and look, I know Tesla’s publicly traded, and Elon Musk still gets to do whatever he wants. I know, I know. I know. This is me being optimistic. Kimberly Adams. Hello. Do you not recognize this? Hello?

Kimberly Adams 

No I don’t. Not from you. No, I don’t.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m hoping I’m hopeful that more eyes on Star link, right. And market forces, which I know can be shaky at best. might do something, maybe I’m crazy. I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe I’m fine. I don’t know.

Kimberly Adams 

I like optimistic Kai. I like this version.

Kai Ryssdal 

Okay. All right. Okay, so that’s item number one. Item number two, also SpaceX. The company got approval today and will launch on Friday. Its next attempt at the starship, which is the thing that blew up a large part of South Texas, along with the rocket itself. The last time I tried to launch, which I think was in April. So the really interesting part about this, is that the company has gotten all the necessary approvals from the EPA, from the FAA, from environmental and safety people and all of that jazz. So, huh, that’s interesting that they got all those approvals, but also be This is big rocket, and I’m curious to see if we can get off the ground.

Kimberly Adams 

Huh? Yeah. Yeah. I have many thoughts. I need to sweat them a bit first. Okay.

Kai Ryssdal 

Fair enough.

Kimberly Adams 

That’s cool. All right. Well, my news is very election related because, you know, we’re in it whatever just absorb. There was, this is going to sound obscure, but I’m going to explain why it matters. So there’s this liberal super PAC called Priorities USA. And it’s not just any super PAC. It’s like the big one that one of the biggest of liberal super PACs. They announced on Tuesday that they are not going to run a single television advertisement in the 2024 election cycle. They are going all digital. I’m going to read here from the New York Times, “Instead, the group announced Tuesday, Priorities USA is reshaping itself as a digital political strategy operation, the culmination of a yearslong transition from its supporting role in presidential campaigns to a full-service communications, research and training behemoth for Democrats up and down the ballot. The move reflects a broad shift in media consumption over the past decade, away from traditional broadcast outlets and toward a fragmented online world. It also shows the growing role played by big-money groups in shaping campaigns and American political life: Priorities USA says it will spend $75 million on digital ‘communications, research and infrastructure’ in the next year.” So much of how we view political campaigning and political spending and ad spending has been run through the filter of TV ads for as long as I’ve been covering presidential elections. And for the record, the very first presidential election I ever covered was in the year of our Lord 2000. Well, you know, actually an yeah, whatever. There’s lots of versions of that upbringing. Common, isn’t there a new one though? There’s, there’s something else that’s not AD that because there’s BCE, and then that’s before Christian Era instead of BC. But isn’t there a different version of AD as well?

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t know. But there are listeners to this podcast who will know.

Kimberly Adams 

And that was a long tangent. Anyway. So since 2000, you’ve been going through, to look at see how campaigns were doing, how they were spending their ad revenue, how they were spending their money, you look at their ad spend, specifically their TV ad spending, because TV advertising was the right way to get at the most active voters and have Priorities USA say forget it, we’re not even going to bother with it is really a marker of the shift. Digital Advertising has been creeping up on television advertising for years now. And I believe it actually surpassed television advertising by a bit in the last cycle, but we’ll have to go and double check. But the fact that they’re not even trying says a lot about where they think voters are or where they can reach voters. Because yes, you can skip ads on TV, very few people are watching live TV, even with the decline of viewership of live sports. That was one place to get them. And so I also saw news today that, you know, a growing number of people are getting especially young voters, they’re getting their news from Tik Tok. So, exactly. And so I just think people should be mindful that just because you don’t see the ads on TV doesn’t or you don’t hear about the television ad spend does not mean they’re not going to get you they will find you everywhere else, this campaign cycle.

Kai Ryssdal 

So a question if I might, do you think and you don’t have to answer it now, we can always come back to this. What do you think that will do? To the way America votes? Is that going to substantively change how America votes not like the physicality of it, but the result at the ballot box?

Kimberly Adams 

So there is research demonstrating that advertising helps with name recognition. It doesn’t really sway people so much. Like there’s just there are so few actual swing voters in this country, like the slice that is independent, like really, really independent, is a relatively small slice. And so will it matter so much in the presidential election? Maybe not? Will it matter in the primaries? Probably.Will it matter in state and local races? Probably. And there are a lot of ballot initiatives, I mean, especially on issues related to abortion, and things like that, that are coming up all over the country. And I think it will matter there because younger voters in particular, who were not being exposed to political advertising in many of the previous cycles, simply because it was not reaching them, and they were getting around it are now going to start seeing it, see they’re going to start seeing it, they’re going to be annoyed by it just like everybody else. And I think we don’t know yet what that’s going to do. Because there’s also so few guardrails over around the advertising itself. And whether or not any of its true artificial intelligence in these ads, I think these ads are going to be hyper targeted. One of the stories I’m eventually going to do this campaign cycle is about just exactly what data campaigns have on all of us to help them target the advertising because it’s a lot. And so I do think it’s going to sway people on down ballot issues. I don’t think it’s going to matter so much in the presidential race. Okay. Thank you for that. You’re welcome. All right. But um, I’ll be interested to hear from people throughout the course of the campaign, especially people who are are very online. If you’re seeing more online ads, what kind of ads are getting targeted your way? If it’s creepy to you or not, if it’s actually changing your mind, definitely let us know as we make it make it through. Totally. Yeah. All right. Let’s do some smiles. I want to hear your space smile.

Kai Ryssdal 

All right. All right. Here’s my space thing. So there I am sipping my coffee this morning at four, whatever the hell it was. And I flipped through the New York Times, and I read this headline, a supernova destroyed some of Earth’s ozone for a few minutes in 2022. So I read into the article, and it says, on October 9, 2022, telescopes in space picked up a jet of high energy photons careening through the cosmos toward Earth. Now a team of scientists have discovered that this bursts caused a measurable change in the number of ionized particles found in Earth’s upper atmosphere, the ozone was partially depleted was destroyed, temporarily said Pietro Ubertini an astronomer at the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome. We got hit by gamma rays from outer space people. Are you kidding me?

Kimberly Adams 

But was it aliens?

Kai Ryssdal 

Are you kidding me? Come on. And there’s, there’s a great, there’s a great artist’s representation of this thing. And it’s got a purple beam coming from space zapping. It’s number one. It’s cool. And also a little freaky. But we’re not alone. I mean, things happen out there that affect the earth, and we’re not even paying attention. It’s wild. Yeah. Wild.

Kimberly Adams 

I will point everyone back to that amazing New York, New York Times interactive about the James Webb Space Telescope, because like, there’s so much going on out there. And what I love about this whole moment we’re in is that this concept of space being empty, it’s just getting tossed out the window or mostly empty space.

Kai Ryssdal 

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Kimberly Adams 

So in DC, it is, and maybe it is where you are to it is holiday party season. And see what that means is a lot of think tanks and lobbying groups and industry groups or associations are having all of these big, elaborate parties. And then of course, you have like your friend parties and things like that. So it’s very busy social calendar very challenging for us introverts, but nevertheless, we we carry on. But there’s an interesting article in Vox that I saw, that says “The case for inviting everyone to everything.” Now, I have a couple of really big parties every year. And the not so secret secret about my very big parties is that I I am actually an introvert and one of the things that my very big parties do is they allow me to see a lot of my sort of friend group at one time in one dose, and then I can retreat. And so lots of people are like, oh, yeah, I see I hang out with Kimberly. And we’re, we’re good. We’ve caught up a couple times when really they’ve only actually seen me at like the three parties I throw a year, but I still get to stay in touch with people, but still, like mainly be a hermit most of the year. And so it’s sort of like the introverts cop out for, for, you know, pretending to be an extrovert. But this article is talking about how you know, when given the option, it’s nice to just extend the invitation, even if you haven’t talked to somebody in a while. And this, especially in, I’m just gonna read here, “putting yourself in a place to form new and surprising connections could lead to revelations. So why not broaden the invitation? Broadening the invitation means more than just including new acquaintances or strangers at social events. It can also mean reaching out to people you haven’t spoken to in a while…Inviting someone to an event where they may not know others can feel awkward, especially if it’s been a long time since you last spoke or if you just don’t know them very well. But research shows that you should take heart — chances are that person will be way happier to hear from you than you expect. One study found that people we know are consistently happier to hear from us than we anticipate, especially when the overture is more surprising and unexpected.” And so and there’s another study that found that people who mingled with more loose acquaintances or strangers in a day reported better moods and a higher sense of communal belonging. There’s a paper that assesses people’s social portfolios and found that people whose regular social interactions ran the gamut of closeness from family members to coworkers to strangers reported a higher life satisfaction and better quality of life than those with less diverse social lives. And so in this holiday season, if you’re thinking about whether or not to kind of push yourself to accept that invitation, or even to extend it, I’d say go for it and you know, you can always retreat and be a hermit later. That’s it and it made me kind of smile. Think about people being welcoming and especially it’s it’s hard at this time of year for a lot of people, and especially with everything going on in the world, it’s just hard in general. So any kind of graciousness or kindness that we can extend. Let’s let’s do it and try to help each other out. So that’s my smile.

Kai Ryssdal 

Amen. Amen. Good. All right.

Kimberly Adams 

So that’s it for us today. We are gonna be back tomorrow. And until then you know how to get a hold of us. You can send your thoughts questions, comments, suggested audio clips, paranoia about the upcoming political ad de luz that’s headed our way to makemesmart@marketplace.org. Or you can leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Kai Ryssdal 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Today’s program was engineered by Jayk Cherry. Our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kimberly Adams 

Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed. Our theme music our senior producers Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. What’s your holiday party calendar like Kai?

Kai Ryssdal 

Completely open, completely empty. It’s true.

Kimberly Adams 

Let the invitation start flowing folks.