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Hovering hundreds of miles above Earth is the largest single constellation of satellites. It's called Starlink.
Falcon Starlink LDS go for launch.
And there is that call out that we are go for launch.
Watch as Falcon nine takes our stack of Starlink satellites into orbit. Starlink is part of Elon Musk's company SpaceX. It's thousands of satellites provide Internet all over the world through portable kits about the size of a home computer monitor. The idea is to reach even the hardest to reach places, places where other providers can't operate or don't. On its website, Starlink proclaims that it's available almost everywhere on Earth, and
that's a big selling point for the service. But there are some places starlink isn't supposed to be.
If you look at Starlink's website, they have a very good map of global coverage. They dutifully have certain countries blacked out or they'll have dates when Starlink services will become available, and some of the countries where it's more controversial, they will have no date available.
That's alan Crawford, a senior editor at Bloomberg. Some of those blacked out countries he's talking about represent places where starlink services don't have a licensing agreement, haven't been approved by their governments, or where the devices have been barred for sale because of US sanctions. But a Bloomberg investigation has found that those barriers haven't stopped Starlingk's kits from getting into the hands of folks on the ground through a burgeoning black market.
What really struck me was the extent of this issue, that it's not just an isolated case here and there, it's pretty much everywhere.
Today on the show, what starlink kits seeping into illegal markets could mean for the company and the geopolitical stakes of letting that market continue or trying to shut it down. Three two one Sarah technician I left at this is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. Alan. Can you start by just telling us about starlink.
Well, Starlink is a system of high speed internet. It's very dependable, and it's based on satellites. The company is launched over five thousand satellites and it's using these to provide high speed internet in parts of the world where connectivity is not very good.
Essentially, SpaceX launched the first Starlink satellites in twenty nineteen. In just a few years, it's become the largest satellite network in orbital space. It's also become a major source of revenue for SpaceX, along with government contracts and contracts with other companies to launch their satellites.
The issue here for Starlink is that a lot of countries where they don't have good connectivity are kind of keen to get access to this for obvious reasons, but at the same time, they're not willing to just freely give over control to the company, and this has led to an issue that it's come up in the reporting for the story that there are many countries around the world where there's no licensing agreement between the government and Starlink, and the trouble is that people are turning to the
black market to obtain Starlink devices.
Anyway, your reporting found that Starlink terminals have ended up in places that are under US sanctions where Starlink is barred from operating, or just where Starlink does not have a licensing Can you give us a brief overview of what your team found is happening.
Yeah, I mean the starlink kits. These are the kind of dish and receiver. They're widely advertised over social media, usually like WhatsApp groups and Facebook groups. There's countries like Sudan in North Africa, which is subject to US sanctions. There's a brutal civil war underway there and there have
been allegations of genocide. Millions of people have been displaced, and our reporting shows that the rebel forces which have been accused of committing these human rights abuses are using starlink. Because again, this is like a vast country with poor internet systems in parts, but the internet's been brought down and the two sides are, you know, accusing each other of having done that, and in the meantime they're using starlink.
What can darlink itself do about these kits ending up in the wrong hands.
Well, that is really the numb of the matter. We put a set of quite extensive questions to Sterlink and they have yet to respond. Nevertheless, people we spoke to who are experts in the industry, who work in the industry, they said that it is feasible to geolocate these systems as soon as they're activated, you can see where they are in theory, you flick the switch and you turn it off.
Right, I mean, is that something they've done in the past. They have that capability, they have they used it.
What we were told was that they have moved against illegal use in South Africa, and so the technicalities of how they're doing that are not clear, but they have attempted to clamp down on the illegal use there. But equally we were told that it hadn't been very successful, that they had only managed to shut down some ten percent of the terminalist we're in use.
Sudan is just one of the conflict torn countries where starlink terminals are being used and where they're banned. It's not just that militias want communications devices. It's also that ordinary people need access to the Internet, and that dynamic is not so unique to Sudan. All over the world, in places under crisis where blackouts and connectivity issues are common, people are trying to get their hands on starlink kits.
You mentioned Sudan, and you've got a lot of detail about how starlink is getting into Sudan, and then how it's being used there. Can you walk us through that trajectory.
In terms of Sudan, there are intermediaries who are obviously looking to make money in selling this in the black market, and they're bringing it in from Gulf countries that are apparently bringing it through Dubai and there are roots that they go through Darfur and South Sudan and bring them
into the country that way. You know, when you buy a Starlink system, you get the physical equipment and then like I'm mobile phone, you get a tariff a plan and you can pay extra for roaming, and they're using it in these territories where there's no agreement to do so.
So they're buying a kit in a place where Starlink does have a licensing agreement, but they're buying this roaming plan so they can use it in places that are perhaps not under that agreement.
Exactly. The reporter Sam and Marxy actually caught up with traders and spoke to them in person, and so in terms of social media, these are essentially like small traders that are online that are taking advantage of a loophole or black market to import these devices and sell them at a markup. In some cases we found they were offering advice on how to shelter these devices so that they're not detected by the authorities, not digitally but physically.
You know, they were giving advicely, don't put it in obvious part of your roof, you know, keep it to one side. And at certain times.
This raises questions about local regulators and their responsibility to catch that these kids have been smuggled in and are being used.
Governments and countries like South Africa where there is no licensing agreement with Starlink, then they have issued the Telecoms Regulator has issued clear warnings against people using this because it's illegal.
Let's talk about the implications of this, Especially in a conflict like the Russia Ukraine War. Starlink can have a massive impact on battlefield communications. What role has starlink played already in the Ukraine Russia War?
At the onset of the war back in February twenty twenty two, Elon Musk offered the starlink system to the Ukrainian government military, which they were obviously more than happy to accept. There was subsequently a deal done between the Pentagon and Ukrainians, and in terms of that were never made public. But nevertheless, we've seen plentiful evidence that starlink
terminals are used in Ukraine. But what is new is that as of February this year, the Ukrainians said that Russia is now starting to use it as well, which would be very much against US sanctions. And Musk said on X his social media platform that they were not knowingly selling any terminals to Russia. But nevertheless, there are posts on Twitter or video of Russian soldiers opening starlink its. It's impossible to verify these, but the point is that it's a widespread phenomenon.
Finding the technology and shutting it down is one thing, but any attempt to systematically address the problem could mean dealing with the big man at the top. When we come back, how SpaceX's controversial CEO Elon Musk factors into any attempts to rein in Starlink's black market boom We're back Bloomber Senior editor Alan Crawford has been telling me about how starlink kits have been circulating in countries where the system doesn't have agreements in place, and efforts to
rein that in haven't been wholly successful. But there's one person we haven't really talked about much. Yet who's a big factor Elon Musk himself. He's the CEO and founder of SpaceX, the private company behind the Starlink satellite system. Here's what Alan had to say about Musk.
Musk is known to weigh in on not just the war in Ukraine caused by Russia's invasion, but on various different aspects of US foreign policy. And that's what gets to some of the concerns that we heard voiced. There's the perception of a potential conflict of inter interest because Elon Musk is a private sector he is a supplier of services to the US government, notablay NASA, and he's taking these satellite payloads for the US government into space.
And so there are obvious national security implications if a company like Starlink where to lose control of a satellite based system, or where even just to exercise limited patrolling of its own system.
To dig into these possible security risks and the broader question of Musk's role in all of this, I spoke with my colleague Dan Flatley, a national security reporter at Bloomberg who's covered the government contractor relationship between Musk and the US.
Musk has a ton of contracts. I mean, there's there's an argument that could be made that Elon Musk would not be Elon Musk without the US government. I mean he is, you know, starting in the early two thousands with SpaceX, done lots of contracts with NASA, with other parts of the US government in terms of launching satellites and other types of things into space. He does business
with the military. Starlink is being used in Ukraine, but he also has links to the Chinese government through Tesla, so he's sort of has his hands in a lot of different spaces.
How could starlink terminals bypassing sanctions, for example, cause national security concerns for the US if they're so entangled with Elon Musk's companies.
So, you know, starlink is both a tool of communication and could be viewed as something that's an asset in terms of national security by the US, but it could also be a detriment to US national security depending on how it's used. And when you have someone who's as unpredictable and mercurial as Elon Musk is, but is also so technically proficient and offers a service that nobody else offers you're sort of right on the bleeding edge of what could be used for good or what could be
used for ill. And I think that what US national security officials that we talked to in Washington, d C. Feel like is that they don't have enough of a sense of where Elon Musk is on any given day on a lot of these issues. That he is both a trusted partner and somebody that US national security officials are somewhat wary at the same time. But there's no alternative really to him for a lot of things, especially
against SpaceX and stuff like starlink. You know, there's not a lot of other comparable sort of providers out there.
What could it mean for Musk and his companies if they aren't able to address this issue, If it does become more of a priority of the US government to stop this and Starlink is enable to stop it.
That's a really good question. I think you have to start with the question of does the US government want to stop this? And it's not totally clear whether they do, because there are some instances where the US government actually wants to encourage the use of starlink in some countries,
whether it's Ukraine or Iran potentially. You know, there is a school of thought that more communication in some of these countries is better because it sort of opens it up to US markets, and you know, sort of the US way of thinking about certain things. I think the question is, are these terminals being used for military operations, are they being used to coordinate attacks, are they being used in some way that would represent a significant threat
to national security? And at that point, does the government have a vested interest in getting involved. You know, anytime you have a technology like starlink that is so far advanced compared to what else is available out there, you're going to have people trying to get their hands on it. And that's one of the things that in some cases the US government wants to prevent and in other cases wants to encourage. Take Venezuela for instance, where Starlink terminals
are showing up. Venezuela is under heavy US sanctions, but not every individual in Venezuela is sanctioned. So you know, if somebody is using a starlink terminal to access the Internet and they're not under sanctions and they're not under export control restrictions, then that's really a question for that country's government. If they are unders export controls, then that is a question for the US government.
Yeah, it's a really complicated web of responsibility, global interests, and ultimately it comes down to who has the control and who has the will to exert that control.
It seems like yeah, absolutely, And again, this is not a traditional company, This is not a traditional individual that you're dealing with. I think, by any metric, Elon Musk is not your typical, you know, entrepreneur. He's very outspoken, he's very unpredictable, and at the end of the day, the government, the US government in this case, is relying on him for a lot of different things and is not able to exert as much control over his activities as it might in a more traditional relationship.
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by Adrianna Tapia. It was edited by Aaron Edwards and Shelley Banjo. It was mixed by Veronica Rodriguez. It was fact checked by Naomi. Our senior producers are Naomi Shaven and Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole Bumsterbor is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is our head of Podcasts. Thanks for listening, Please follow and review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners find
the show. We'll be back tomorrow.