A political storm is brewing in Italy in the wake of a Bloomberg News report claiming that the Meloni government is in “advanced talks” with SpaceX for a telecommunications contract worth $1.6 billion. According to the report, a final agreement on the five-year deal has not yet been reached, although sources told Bloomberg that it had been approved by the country’s Intelligence Services and Defense Ministry. Giorgia Meloni, who traveled to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend to meet with president-elect Trump, called allegations that the subject was discussed with him “simply ridiculous.” In a statement, her government denied “that any contracts have been signed or any agreements concluded between the Italian government and the company SpaceX,” and that communications between the two are “part of the normal in-depth analysis that state apparatuses have with companies.”
Italian opposition leaders are sounding the alarm. “If €1.5 billion of the Italian public’s money to bring the American billionaire’s satellites to our country is the price we have to pay for his friendship, we will not stand for it,” said Elly Schlein, secretary of the Italy’s Democratic Party (PD). Former prime minister and PD secretary Matteo Renzi found fault with what he saw as an opaque procurement process. “The government cannot give €1.5 billion to a private party without bidding or an otherwise public process,” he posted on X – a social media platform which, like SpaceX, is also owned by Elon Musk. “If Musk wants Italian taxpayers’ money, Meloni must explain why, how and when. That’s the bare minimum, is it not?” Another former prime minister, Giuseppe Conte of the Five Star Movement party, zeroed in on the chummy relationship between Meloni and Musk, which has been the stuff of headlines for the last two years: “Can all this be decided on the basis of personal relations between our premier and one of the would-be masters of the world?”
Leadership at the EU is apparently going with a wait-and-see approach. A spokesperson for the European Commission stated that they had not heard from Italian authorities yet on the matter. and that they will weigh in “when we have the information.” They are also not yet going to weigh in on the possible risks to “EU technological sovereignty.”
The question of Italy’s reliance on Musk’s technology should this deal go through has raised concerns. The EU is working on its own network of cyber-secure satellites called IRIS2, with one of the ground stations for the program to be located in Italy. The €10.6 billion program is not expected to be operational before 2030, however, and the reported deal with SpaceX appears to fill the same role. Speaking to Politico, a secure communications expert expressed concern that the Italian government could find itself unable to “talk to anybody at all” if they rely to heavily on Musk’s venture, should their SpaceX services suffer an outage or get pulled.
The possibility is not just a hypothetical, as Musk has intervened directly on Starlink’s functionality to restrict a government’s action where he sees fit. In 2022, the Silicon Valley financier prevented a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian navy in Crimea by shutting it off over the area of the planned attack, of which he had advance knowledge. It was also reported last year that Musk is in regular contact with Vladimir Putin through phone calls.
