Elon Musk's Starlink might have just been hit with a heavy blow after premier of Ontario Doug Ford has announced that the province's contract with SpaceX has been 'ripped up' amid the CEO's ties to US President Donald Trump.
While it has certainly allowed him to gain significant power - even if it comes with extremely long work days - Musk's close involvement with US President Donald Trump has harmed his reputation in some key areas.
He received widespread criticism for an alleged Nazi salute at the presidential inauguration, which led to many communities on Reddit banning all content from Musk-owned social media platform X, and experts have indicated that his current political actions have damaged the brand value of Tesla, which could be part of the reason behind the company's first sales decline in nearly a decade.
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Perhaps the most costly consequence so far involves SpaceX's Starlink internet service though, which recently assisted networks during the California wildfires, as a previously agreed contract worth C$100,000,000 ($68 million) has been 'torn up' following Musk's ties to Trump.
"Ontario won't do business with people hell-bent on destroying our economy," argued Ontario premier Doug Ford, as reported by the BBC, in reference to the extreme 25% tariffs set on Canada which have sent even the cryptocurrency market into a spiral.
Ford insisted that this strong stance is about "the principle," and asserted that he's willing to remain firm despite indications that he'd have to pay a fine if the case was brought by Musk to court.
While the tariffs on Canada have now been temporarily paused, Ford previously indicated that Musk is, as per CBC, "part of the Trump team that wants to destroy families, incomes, destroy businesses. He wants to take food off the table of people, hard working people, and I'm not going to tolerate it."
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Musk himself has offered somewhat of a muted response to the news, adding a simple "Oh well" to a post outlining Ford's plans on X, so it looks like it's not bothering him too much.
Some on the r/Starlink subreddit have argued that the only people suffering from this news are those who are now without the internet access provided by the SpaceX subsidiary.
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"I would think the real losers here aren't Musk, Trump, or the American people, but the Canadian citizens in Ontario who needed Starlink to get high-speed internet access."
Another added that "the only people this will actually impact are the people in rural areas of Canada. For Musk, 100 million is pocket change."
That last part is definitely true, as Musk currently holds an estimated net work of $418,000,000,000 which is by far the highest in the world and nearly double that of the second on the list.
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One other commenter has outlined their frustration at the internet situation in general, however, illustrating: "Wish there was a decent alternative to Starlink where I live, essentially the alternative is to go back to data limits and almost unusable speeds, my previous provider in Ontario you couldn't stream anything and data limits made it useless."
For some Starlink is their only real option, and while many might find the association with Musk complicated and troublesome, you often don't have any other alternative depending on where you live.