Democrats will try to nationalize Elon Musk’s companies

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich went on the air this week to call for a future Democratic administration to nationalize SpaceX and Starlink and turn Elon Musk’s private enterprises into state-run public corporations. His remarks were widely dismissed as the far-left fringe venting its spleen, but dismissiveness is a mistake.“We’ve got to defund Musk … when I say defund Musk, you know, 75% of his wealth is dependent on taxpayers who are buying Starlink systems for the Department of Defense. … If we have a Democratic administration, the Democrats ought to be starting this — not just with oversight hearings, but also starting, laying the groundwork for nationalizing Starlink and SpaceX. Nationalize it. It should be a public corporation. We should not ever have that kind of power in one person’s hands. … Musk is buying, trying to buy the senator from Texas. I mean, why would we, why should we allow this? Seriously. Well, we shouldn’t,” Reich said. Recommended Stories In the 1990s, Reich was known as a far-left progressive, but nowadays he sits firmly in the center of the Democratic Party ideologically. He is the uninhibited id of the Left. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) is already calling for federal investigations into Musk’s companies, and more Democratic leaders will certainly follow suit. It is difficult to imagine any future Democratic standard-bearer, whether it be Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Gavin Newsom, or Elizabeth Warren, declining to use any and all tools at their disposal to harm Musk and his companies, regardless of the impact on U.S. space exploration and national security. On its face, the proposal to nationalize private companies because their founder holds political views distasteful to the ruling regime is categorically un-American. The Fifth Amendment’s takings clause was explicitly designed to prevent the state from seizing private property for political retribution or state planning. Transforming private tech behemoths into public entities because a billionaire expresses dissenting views turns the rule of law into a partisan weapon. Private property rights, the bedrock of American free enterprise, cease to exist if the state can nationalize a company simply because it deems its founder too influential.Elon Musk listens to the speech of Chinese President Xi Jinping during a state dinner with President Donald Trump at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday May 14, 2026, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) Of course, Democrats, at best, view the Constitution as a nuisance to be subverted at any available opportunity. Aside from constitutionality issues, nationalizing SpaceX would instantly crush America’s lead in space exploration and national security. SpaceX succeeded because it escaped the rigid, risk-averse, cost-plus bureaucratic culture that bogged down NASA and legacy defense contractors for decades. By pioneering reusable rockets and other innovations, SpaceX slashed the (often taxpayer-funded) cost of launching payloads into orbit by over 80%. SpaceX handles the vast majority of commercial and military orbital launches. Starlink and defense-specific Starshield provide real-time, low-Earth-orbit satellite communications that are critical to modern military command and control (just ask the Ukrainians). Giving these operations to a federal bureaucracy would reintroduce the red tape, political compromise, and cost overruns that rendered traditional space programs stagnant. It would paralyze the defense supply chain and surrender America’s orbital advantage to the Chinese.Unfortunately, the Right has an uncomfortable truth to contend with: The Trump White House has handed the Left the exact permission structure it needs to attempt such a scheme. Over the past two years, the administration has embraced aggressive economic nationalism, acquiring direct federal stakes in dozens of private American companies under the guise of national security and supply chain protection. There have been over 30 deals in which the state has taken a direct ownership stake, from a 10% stake in Intel using CHIPS Act incentives to a 35% stake in North American Blue Energy Partners via the War Department.DEMOCRATS ASK MUSK FOR CLARIFICATION ON STARLINK SHUTDOWN IN UKRAINEBy normalizing “Uncle Sam, Shareholder,” Trump has established the precedent that the government can, and should, take ownership of private companies. When state capitalism is endorsed by a Republican president, it nullifies future conservative objections to Democratic nationalization. Progressive strategists are already openly acknowledging that the mechanisms built by the current administration will serve as the engine for leftist industrial planning and corporate government intervention under the next Democratic administration.Creeping socialism is here, ushered through the door by Republicans as Democrats wait in the wings licking their chops. If American innovation is to survive, both parties must abandon economic interventionism and restore a hard-and-fast boundary between private enterprise and federal power.Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a writer, musician, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.