Elon Musk and SpaceX: when a private individual controls a State’s nerve centre
Today I am providing my English translation of an article by Margherita Furlan, originally in Italian and published on AntiMafiaDuemila.com (link broken1) on Monday 27th April 2026. This is the second part of a series of articles - the first one was translated here.
(All formatting original, footnotes mine).
To understand how the world’s richest man came to treat the Italian Republic’s classified communications as a business matter, we must start with a lunch of spaghetti with clams.
On 15th June 2023, Elon Musk lands in Rome on a private flight from Austin, Texas. He is accompanied by Andrea Stroppa, a 29-year-old Roman computer scientist and former member of the Anonymous collective, who effectively acts as his liaison in Italy despite holding no official position within Musk’s companies. The day is divided between leisure and power: a fleeting visit to the Colosseum in a white Tesla, lunch at the Tullio restaurant in central Rome, and a view from the terrace of the Bernini Bristol to admire the city’s rooftops. And then, in the afternoon, the meeting that matters: over an hour at Palazzo Chigi2 with the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. There are three official topics: the birth rate, the risks of artificial intelligence and European regulation. Musk, interviewed by TG13, utters a phrase that sounds like friendly advice but is in fact a policy manifesto: Europe suffers from “an excessive accumulation of rules and laws” and is like “a Gulliver’s giant tied to the ground by too many ropes and ties”. The message, translated from diplomatic language into business parlance, is simple: Europe over-regulates, and this prevents companies like mine from operating freely. On the same day, Foreign Minister [Antonio] Tajani meets him separately and tells him: “Italy is the best country in Europe to invest in, should you be interested.” That very evening, Musk sets off for Paris, where [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron awaits him. Italy is a stopover, not a destination. But a decisive one.
From that Roman lunch began the methodical building of an unprecedented personal and political relationship between a private entrepreneur and a European head of government. Musk began reposting Meloni’s interviews and statements on his own platform, describing her as “a leader with courage” and praising her firm stance on immigration and the traditional family. In December 2023, Musk attends Atreju, the Fratelli d’Italia4 party, bringing part of his family with him, including children born via surrogacy, which the Meloni government has since made a universal offence in Italy. The irony does not seem to bother anyone present.
The symbolic moment arrives on 23rd September 2024 in New York. Musk presents Meloni with the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen Award, the prestigious accolade from America’s leading Atlanticist think tank. Musk’s words are carefully chosen: Meloni is “authentic, honest, sincere, and you can’t always say that about politicians”. He adds that she is “even more beautiful on the inside than on the outside”. Musk’s mother, Maye, who is present at the ceremony, takes to social media to deny rumours of a romantic relationship between the two. Meloni reciprocates in an interview with Corriere della Sera5: Musk is “a genius” who has been “portrayed as a monster simply because he chose the wrong political camp, according to them”. The Salvini6-Musk relationship runs in parallel: the Lega’s Deputy Prime Minister proposes honorary Lombard citizenship for the entrepreneur and offers him sites in the north for a hypothetical European Tesla centre. The Quirinale7, however, does not share this enthusiasm. When Musk posted a scathing comment on his platform about Italy’s handling of immigration, calling it “a humanitarian farce”, and criticised “the pathological inefficiency of the public sector”, the Presidency of the Republic issued a statement of rare severity, calling on “all international actors to show greater respect for democratic institutions and the dignity of people”. It is one of the very few instances in which the Quirinale has publicly intervened regarding a foreign entrepreneur. The message is clear: [Italian President Sergio] Mattarella has realised that Musk is not just any investor, but a political figure with ambitions that go beyond business.
The transition from political courtship to a military contract is reconstructed in detail by L’Espresso8. The plan to route the Italian government’s encrypted communications through the Starlink satellite network takes shape in December 2023. SpaceX executives formally present a proposal to the Prime Minister’s Office to connect Italian diplomatic missions abroad, particularly embassies, using Starlink’s low-orbit, low-cost satellites. The matter is entrusted to the offices of General Franco Federici, Meloni’s military adviser, and is discussed with the Defence Staff.
The breakthrough comes on 4th and 5th January 2025. Meloni makes a surprise trip to Mar-a-Lago, [US President Donald J.] Trump’s residence in Florida, for a meeting kept secret until the very last moment. The Prime Minister’s plane departs from Palm Beach shortly after 11 pm local time, 5 am in Italy. The meeting lasts around five hours. Seated at the table, alongside Trump and Meloni, are the future Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the future Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, the future US Ambassador to Italy, Tilman Fertitta, and the Italian Ambassador to the United States, Mariangela Zappia. Musk was due to attend but cancelled at the last minute due to a personal matter that forced him to return to Austin. Nevertheless, his hand is clearly in this: shortly before the meeting, Stroppa posts an AI-generated image on Musk’s platform depicting Trump and Meloni dressed as ancient Romans, with Musk himself slightly off to the side in the background. Bloomberg reveals that the meeting gives a decisive boost to a five-year, €1.5 billion contract with SpaceX, the largest of its kind in Europe. According to the leaked details, the project comprises three components. The first: a top-level encryption system for the telephone and IT networks of the government and embassies, to make institutional communications inaccessible. The second: military communications for the Italian army in the Mediterranean, where Italy has contingents and strategic bases. The third: the so-called “direct-to-cell” service, to be used in the event of national emergencies such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters, which would allow citizens’ phones to be reached even in the event of a collapse of terrestrial networks. The Prime Minister’s Office denies that any contracts have been signed: “Discussions with SpaceX are part of the normal consultations that State bodies have with companies”. Meloni, at the press conference on 9th and 10th January 2025, stated: “I have never spoken personally with Musk about these matters. I do not do favours for friends”. But Salvini, on the same day, described Musk as “a global leader in innovation” and a potential agreement as “not a danger but an opportunity”.
Musk responded via his own platform: “Ready to provide Italy with the most secure and advanced connectivity”.
Behind the scenes, the affair has legal implications. L’Espresso reveals that Andrea Stroppa, Musk’s young representative in Italy, and Commander Antonio Angelo Masala, an officer seconded to the [Italian] General Staff, are under investigation by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office for complicity in corruption. The charge: Masala is alleged to have passed on confidential documents and information to Stroppa, who holds no official position for SpaceX either in Italy or abroad. The investigation is being led by deputy prosecutors Paolo Ielo and Giuseppe Cascini and coordinated by the Guardia di Finanza9. Stroppa, meanwhile, continues to post photographs on social media alongside Musk and Meloni, including those taken at the Global Citizen Award ceremony. [Italian] Defence Minister Guido Crosetto defended the engagement with SpaceX with an argument that deserves to be heard and then dismantled. “SpaceX has 6,700 satellites in low Earth orbit, with a forecast of 42,000: it is an operator that meets the requirements to provide capabilities and services to our Defence”, he told the Chamber of Deputies. And he added: “Europe is working on an alternative system, the IRIS project, but it will take 10–15 years”. The argument is: we have no alternatives; we must buy from Musk because we are fifteen years behind. But the question that Crosetto does not ask himself, or does not wish to ask himself, is another: how did we end up fifteen years behind? And who stands to gain from the fact that we are? Because the strategic reality is stark and must be stated plainly. Entrusting Starlink with the encrypted communications of the government, embassies, military contingents and intelligence services means handing over the switch for national communications to a foreign private entity that is accountable to no parliament, no government, and no democratic oversight body. This is a private entity that has already demonstrated, in the case of Ukraine, that it can unilaterally restrict and influence the use of its satellites for personal or political reasons. When Musk threatened to deactivate Starlink on the Ukrainian front, he demonstrated to the whole world that a single individual can decide whether an army at war communicates or remains in the dark. In March 2025, in what Variety described as “a last-minute attempt to salvage the stalled deal”, Musk asked to meet [Italian] President [Sergio] Mattarella in person. A private entrepreneur seeking an audience with the Head of State to unblock a military contract: the very fact that the request was made says it all about the nature of the balance of power. Italy would find itself in the position of a country entrusting the keys to its safe to someone living on the other side of the ocean, who can change the locks whenever he pleases, and who has signed no pact of loyalty. Not with Italy, not with Europe, not with anyone but himself.
Peter Thiel and Palantir: the software that rewrites reality
For four days, from 16th to 19th March 2026, one of the most powerful and least known men on the planet took up residence in the heart of Rome. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, chairman of Palantir, founder of the Founders Fund and financier of the career of US Vice-President J.D. Vance, held a series of closed-door lectures at Palazzo Taverna, a Renaissance building in the historic centre of the capital.
The event was organised by the Brescia-based cultural association Vincenzo Gioberti, which aims to “restore Catholicism as the cornerstone of national identity”, and by the Cluny Institute, based at the Catholic University of America in Washington. The American university has publicly distanced itself: “We are neither sponsoring nor hosting an event with Peter Thiel”. The invitations, which were limited in number, barred the press and recording. The exact venue was kept secret until the last minute. A car believed to be carrying Thiel was photographed by the Associated Press as it arrived at Palazzo Taverna on Monday [16th March 2026].
The highly select audience included Daniele Capezzone, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Il Tempo, Guido Maria Brera, founder of the production company Chora Media, young ultra-conservatives, entrepreneurs and prelates. The seminars began each day with a Latin Mass in the church of San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini. The central theme: the Antichrist.
Thiel’s thesis, developed in a series of previous lectures in Paris and San Francisco, and reported by Le Monde, Politico, Fortune and CNN, is as follows. The Antichrist of the 21st century will not be a recognisable individual, a dictator or a demagogue. It will be a system of global governance that seizes control by exploiting collective fears linked to artificial intelligence, climate change and nuclear war. It will present itself as a protector, promising peace, security and an end to technological risks. Thiel has identified Greta Thunberg and climate activists as the “legionaries of the Antichrist”, figures who, in his view, seek to stifle innovation through regulation and supranational institutions, paving the way for a world government that would suppress individual freedom. The Katéchon, the force which in Pauline theology holds back the coming of the Antichrist and delays the end of time, will not be embodied by traditional religious institutions – which Thiel considers to have failed – but by technology companies. In particular, by his own.
The Vatican reacted with a caution that betrayed deep concern. Two Roman Catholic institutions have distanced themselves. Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Episcopal Conference, published a series of critical articles. The theme of the Antichrist, the organising association stated, is not “a late-medieval quirk” but “a reality check, the recognition that forces, more or less hidden, are at work in our present, committed to destroying what remains of the West”. The visit coincided, whether by chance or design, with the eve of the publication of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence and its risks—a lengthy text, the result of months of work, which incorporates the reflections from the document prepared by Pope Francis for the G7 summit in Puglia. The Vatican and the PayPal Mafia found themselves physically in the same city, at the same time, grappling with the same question: who should govern technology?
But to understand Thiel’s visit to Rome, lessons on the Antichrist are not enough. One must look beneath the surface.
Beneath the theological cover, there is a commercial reality here too. The Ministry of Defence’s Directorate for Information Technology, Telematics and Advanced Technologies, known as Teledife, launched a secret, negotiated procedure in 2024 for the “supply of a Palantir Gotham licence”, worth one million Euros. Gotham is Thiel’s company’s most talked-about product: software for integrating and analysing vast amounts of data, used by major Western intelligence agencies and armed forces, including the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the British Ministry of Defence and NATO structures.
The Italian Ministry of Defence has confirmed the existence of the contract with a statement that deserves to be quoted in full: “This is a classified contract about which we cannot say anything because it concerns certain sensitive aspects of the country. The procedure has been scrutinised and verified by the Court of Auditors”. No explanation as to why, among the numerous companies supplying data analysis tools, Palantir was specifically chosen. No information on the duration of the agreement. No parliamentary approval.
This is not the first deal between Palantir and the Italian Ministry of Defence. A Ministry document lists a previous contract, worth over €1 million, for the “acquisition and expansion of IT systems”, to be completed by August 2015. Between 2018 and 2020, Teledife launched two further tenders for the “Palantir programme”, worth €1.3 million and €950,000, the results of which do not appear in the Anti-Corruption Authority’s database, likely because they are classified. This relationship, therefore, did not begin today: it has been built up over time, contract by contract, layer by layer, always shielded from public scrutiny.
The latest move has been the most ambitious. As revealed by Il Messaggero10, at the end of January 2026 Palantir sent a letter to the leadership of the State Police and the government, proposing a four-year contract worth €20 million for artificial intelligence software intended for the Central Directorate of Preventive Police, the branch that chairs the Strategic Anti-Terrorism Analysis Committee. The software is intended to systematise DIGOS11 data and expand the scope of action of Italian law enforcement agencies in the hunt for criminals and terrorists. In the letter, Palantir lists the European intelligence agencies and institutional bodies with which it already has an established partnership, presenting itself as a natural partner. This time, the government has blocked the proposal: the line, agreed between the Ministry of the Interior and Palazzo Chigi, is that no agreement with Palantir can proceed without a public tender. It is an important signal, but a belated one: Gotham is already embedded within the Italian Defence Ministry under a classified contract, and the question is whether it is still possible to extricate ourselves from it. To gauge what it means to have Palantir within one’s security apparatus, one must look at what the company has become in the rest of the world. On 20th March 2026, Palantir’s Maven system was designated by the Pentagon as the official standard for battlefield command and control. It is the system through which American commanders make operational decisions in real time during an armed conflict. In July 2025, Palantir consolidated 75 separate contracts with the US military into a single framework agreement worth a total of $10 billion. Palantir and Anduril, a company founded by Palmer Luckey, a protégé of Thiel, are jointly developing the software for the Missile Shield, Trump’s Golden Dome project, the first phase of which will cost $185 billion, 50% more than the original estimate. The company’s turnover has risen from $700 million in 2019 to $2.5 billion in 2024; its market capitalisation exceeds $370 billion.
It is not just any supplier. It is an infrastructure. And when an infrastructure of this magnitude enters a country’s defence system, there is no way out. This is precisely what Francesca Bria, an economist and expert in digital policy, clearly explained to the [Italian] newspaper Domani: “The model is always the same. You enter a crisis, offer a solution, and become indispensable. And leaving costs more than staying. No administration that has adopted Gotham has been able to answer the question: what happens if we decide to terminate the contract? The technical constraint is structural. Who approved these purchases, and with what democratic mandate? In too many cases, the answer is: no one, because an emergency exemption was used. If an administration cannot answer these questions, it should not sign. Because what it is buying is not a computer programme. It is dependency, and a surrender of sovereignty.”
The Swiss army has refused to use Palantir for fear that data of national importance might end up in the hands of American intelligence. Italy, by contrast, has signed a classified contract and is considering extending the collaboration to the police. The difference between the two countries does not lie in their level of technological expertise. It lies in their level of awareness of what is being ceded. Father Paolo Benanti, a theologian and Vatican adviser on artificial intelligence, has captured the crux of the matter with rare depth, writing in [French journal] Le Grand Continent: “Thiel’s vision should not be read as a simple rejection of Western values, but as the pathological radicalisation of certain of their components—competition, technology, the individual—which, when elevated to the sole guiding principle, lead to outcomes radically divergent from the common democratic project.” And he concluded: “By accepting Thiel’s technology through Palantir’s “writing of reality”, institutions implicitly adopt his diagnosis: society is a mass incapable of self-government, and the only alternative to apocalypse would be a technocratic order imposed by a ruling elite. In this vision, democracy understood as the self-government of equal citizens is already dead. And all that remains, in the darkness of a data centre, is the clinical management of its corpse”.
End of part two – to be continued [see here]
Recently they revamped the website and, in the process, unfortunately, they may have broken links to “old” articles.
Flagship television newscast produced by Rai 1, the main channel of State-owned Italian public broadcaster RAI - Wikipedia
Matteo Salvini, Italian politician serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport since 2022. He has been Federal Secretary of Italy's right-wing Lega party since December 2013 and an Italian senator since March 2018 - Wikipedia
Italian for Financial Guard (or Financial Police) - it is a militarised law enforcement agency under the Ministry of Economy and Finance - Wikipedia
Divisione Investigazioni Generali e Operazioni Speciali (Italian for General Investigations and Special Operations Division) - it is a law enforcement agency charged with investigating sensitive cases involving terrorism, organized crime and serious offences such as kidnapping and extortion - Wikipedia
There was a reason Gulliver was tied down.
Excellent article on how corporate statism works. The moneyed interests in every country - and internationally - are that country's ultimate enemies - not the people on the other side of the borders.
That both Palantir and SpaceX are being run by what are essentially moronic lunatics should give everyone pause.
It reminds me of the James Bond movie, "Tomorrow Never Dies", the plot of which is:
"Media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) wants his news empire to reach every country on the globe, but the Chinese government will not allow him to broadcast there. Carver doesn't take no for an answer and plans to use his media empire to fuel flames of war between the Western world and China."
Another Bond movie, "Moonraker", also reflected the threat of vast wealth being used for malign purposes:
"When Bond investigates the hijacking of an American space shuttle, he and beautiful CIA agent Holly Goodhead are soon locked in a life-or-death struggle against Hugo Drax, a power-mad industrialist whose horrific scheme may destroy all human life on Earth!"
I've been saying for some time that we live in the "cyberpunk" age, where corporations control everything, the state is a mere front for them, and only the street appropriation of technology by hackers and revolutionaries can fight back.
The moneyed interests and large corporations must be destroyed or WWIII is inevitable.