Pivoting to Troll

Elon Musk’s incessant posting may do wonders for his ego and clout in right-wing circles, but it has destroyed value pretty much everywhere else

- Max Chafkin

On May 20, Elon Musk flew to São Paulo to announce an expansion of his satellite internet service, Starlink. The moment could, and perhaps should, have been regarded as the latest in a list of achievements that have made Musk the best-known technologist of his generation and the richest person in the world.

His rocket company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., was the first private company to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. It now sends so many rockets to orbit, with such regularity, that it has put in place a constellation of thousands of satellites—Starlink— to provide internet service just about anywhere on Earth. The business serves hundreds of thousands of customers around the world, including in Ukraine—which has relied on Starlink-provided connectivity during the Russian invasion—and, according to the new announcement, 19,000 rural schools in Brazil.