{"id":"camfeed-15","numeric_id":15,"short_title":"SpaceX courts Australian investors","seo_title":"As Elon Musk's SpaceX goes public, Australian government officials are flagging Starlink's risks - ABC News","social_title":"Government flags risk of relying on Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starlink","headline":"As Elon Musk's SpaceX goes public, Australian government officials are flagging Starlink's risks","teaser_title":"Government flags risk of relying on Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starlink","titles_source_url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-11/spacex-risk-elon-musk-starlink-satellite-regulation/106779898","titles_fetched_at":"2026-09-05T04:20:17+00:00","title":"Government flags risk of relying on Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starlink","canonical_url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-11/spacex-risk-elon-musk-starlink-satellite-regulation/106779898","published_at":"2026-06-10T19:39:07+00:00","source":"ABC News","source_type":"abc","type":"news article","content_role":"primary","author":"Cameron Wilson","summary":"As tens of thousands of Australians line up to buy shares in Elon Musk's SpaceX blockbuster public offering, Australian government officials are privately flagging the risks posed by the country's growing reliance on its satellite internet service, Starlink.","text":"As tens of thousands of Australians line up to buy shares in Elon Musk's SpaceX blockbuster public offering, Australian government officials are privately flagging the risks posed by the country's growing reliance on its satellite internet service, Starlink.","has_full_text":true,"mcp_visible":true,"mcp_full_text_allowed":true,"full_text_word_count":1254,"full_text_status":"ok","full_text_source_url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-11/spacex-risk-elon-musk-starlink-satellite-regulation/106779898","full_text_fetched_at":"2026-08-05T10:44:49+00:00","has_transcript":false,"transcript_status":"","transcript_kind":"","transcript_char_count":0,"topics":["AI","technology policy","platforms"],"quoted_author":"","quoted_url":"","quoted_text":"","citation":"Cameron Wilson, \"Government flags risk of relying on Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starlink\", ABC News, 2026-06-11, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-11/spacex-risk-elon-musk-starlink-satellite-regulation/106779898","citation_markdown":"Cameron Wilson, [Government flags risk of relying on Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starlink](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-11/spacex-risk-elon-musk-starlink-satellite-regulation/106779898) — ABC News — 2026-06-11","attribution":"Originally published at ABC News. Link to the canonical ABC URL: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-11/spacex-risk-elon-musk-starlink-satellite-regulation/106779898","related_items":[{"id":"camfeed-25","title":"As Elon Musk's SpaceX goes public, government officials are raising the alarm about Starlink's risks to Australia","canonical_url":"https://webcam.substack.com/p/as-elon-musks-spacex-goes-public","public_data_url":"https://camfeed.cameronwilson.com.au/items/25.json","source_type":"substack","source":"webcam","type":"newsletter commentary","content_role":"commentary","published_at":"2026-06-11T00:10:49+00:00","relation":"Newsletter commentary on ABC article: Government flags risk of relying on Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starlink","excerpt":"Hi! I just published As Elon Musk’s SpaceX goes public, Australian government officials are flagging Starlink’s risks . Later this week, Elon Musk’s SpaceX will go public. Naturally, there will be a lot of attention on how it could make Musk the world’s first trillionaire, or on...","has_transcript":false,"transcript_status":"","transcript_kind":""}],"full_text":"As tens of thousands of Australians line up to buy shares in Elon Musk's SpaceX blockbuster public offering, Australian government officials are privately flagging the risks of the country's growing reliance on its satellite internet service, Starlink.\n\nThese concerns were made explicit in a little-noticed official spy agency notice describing satellite internet providers as a serious challenge to Australia's ability to enforce its own laws and protect itself.\n\nThe satellite and artificial intelligence company has pitched prospective buyers on a business plan to build out a global — and one day interplanetary — phone and internet network.\n\nThere were about 200,000 Australians who were Starlink customers, according to a 2025 government estimate.\n\nSince then, major telcos Telstra and Optus have signed deals with SpaceX to let their customers use its satellite phone services when they are out of traditional phone coverage.\n\nNow, documents obtained under freedom of information (FOI) laws show government officials have been assessing the risk of having essential communications reliant on a privately owned, foreign satellite network that is controlled by the world's richest man.\n\nJoel Lisk, a space law lecturer at Flinders University, said Australia had legal mechanisms to regulate Starlink, but the practical question was how much leverage the country had over satellites in orbit.\n\n\"There's the inherent problem: How do you stop someone from doing it?\" Dr Lisk said.\n\nSpaceX did not respond to questions from the ABC.\n\nSatellite operators like SpaceX have 'significant control'\n\nAn internal presentation prepared by the Department of Home Affairs' Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre in May 2025 laid out the \"security considerations\" for low-Earth-orbit satellite communications services like Starlink.\n\nThe internal presentation acknowledged that satellite phone and internet communications services played an important role in Australia, particularly in regional and remote areas.\n\nThe presentation also had a blunt warning specifically about the federal government not having direct control of Starlink because it was not physically based in Australia.\n\nOne slide flagged \"availability risks due to the offshore nature of Starlink\".\n\nHome Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.\n\nThe federal government has awarded more than a dozen contracts worth at least $7.13 million, including services for the Department of Defence and Australian Electoral Commission.\n\nThis total amount grows to more than $50 million when it includes state government contracts, most significantly a $41 million contract with the NSW Rural Fire Service for Starlink installations in thousands of its vehicles.\n\nAnother government document, a public advisory note by the Australian Signals Directorate, which was published in March but garnered little attention, raised the alarm about the risks of relying on satellite internet.\n\nThe note said the private operators of satellite services had \"significant\" control over the networks.\n\n\"This influence may exceed the regulatory capacity of individual nations, raising concerns about sovereignty and the protection of national interests,\" the note said.\n\nWho regulates SpaceX?\n\nStarlink and SpaceX are currently covered by overlapping Australian regulations.\n\nThe Home Affairs presentation identified that Starlink was considered a critical asset under Australia's critical infrastructure law.\n\nThis designation comes with some legal requirements, including protecting itself from risks that would hurt its operation and reporting its ownership details.\n\nIt is also a licensed telecommunication carrier which comes under the purview of the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), Dr Lisk said.\n\nBut he said the interaction between the different regulatory regimes was difficult.\n\nDr Lisk said the issue was not unique to Australia.\n\n\"The regulation of large-scale satellite systems is a genuine area of regulatory concern, with regulators across the world still grappling with the speed at which the technology is evolving,\" he said.\n\n'That's not possible because our licences don't extend into space'\n\nTelstra and SpaceX's attempts to get ACMA's sign-off on their agreement show how complicated this can be.\n\nIn correspondence released under FOI, SpaceX told ACMA it needed evidence from a regulator that it was allowed to use Telstra's spectrum from low-Earth orbit.\n\n\"Of course, that's not possible because our licences don't extend into space,\" the Telstra representative wrote.\n\nTelstra told the ABC that its licence covered the Australian continent and coastline up to the stratosphere.\n\nBeyond that, in the altitude where SpaceX's Starlink operates, the spectrum is governed by international treaties administered by the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector.\n\nSo, ACMA could not give SpaceX official approval to use Telstra's spectrum up there, despite the agreement between the two parties. ACMA did not respond by deadline.\n\n\"Our partnership is operating in full compliance with domestic and international regulations and treaties,\" Telstra said.\n\nThat does not mean Starlink is operating unlawfully, only that this service operates outside the typical, ordinary domestic controls people expect from a national telecommunications network.\n\nTelstra told the ABC it had ensured the interests of its customers, the Australian people and compliance with relevant rules were protected.\n\nAsked whether it could direct SpaceX to stop, modify or limit satellite transmissions using Telstra spectrum over Australia if there was a technical, security or regulatory concern, Telstra said: \"Yes.\"\n\nMusk and Starlink's familiarity with Australian regulators\n\nBoth Starlink and Mr Musk have already had run-ins with Australian regulators.\n\nIn May 2025, ACMA found that Starlink had repeatedly failed to meet its obligations as a telco provider to report the number of complaints it had received. Starlink told ACMA the failure was an administrative oversight.\n\nACMA documents also show Starlink had previously been issued a direction to comply in August 2023, after an investigation found it had breached advertising rules for special promotions.\n\nIn both cases, Starlink cooperated with ACMA when directed.\n\nMr Musk has also shown he is willing to fight Australian regulators personally, including getting involved with his social media company X's dispute with the eSafety commissioner over orders to remove or hide violent footage from the Sydney church stabbing.\n\nBoth Starlink and Mr Musk have also been accused of limiting access to their services in the past.\n\nReuters reported in July 2025 that Mr Musk allegedly ordered Starlink satellite coverage shut down over part of Ukraine's Kherson region during a 2022 counteroffensive.\n\nThe report said the blackout disrupted Ukrainian communications, drones and artillery coordination as forces tried to encircle Russian troops near Beryslav.\n\nMr Musk has denied that he turned off Starlink for Ukraine, and the circumstances of Starlink's military use remain contested.\n\nThe risk that Mr Musk could consider doing the same to Australia is not a thought experiment. Earlier this year, SpaceX threatened to pull its service from Australia if it was forced to bid for spectrum rights.\n\n\"[The spectrum uncertainty meant] we're not even sure we're going to be able to deploy in Australia,\" SpaceX vice-president David Goldman told a Senate inquiry in April, according to the Australian Financial Review.\n\nSpaceX is set to be publicly floated on the NASDAQ on June 12. For the first time, Australian retail investors will be able to directly buy shares in a US public offering.\n\nThis float is expected to make Mr Musk the world's first-ever trillionaire while leaving him still in control of the public company due to its unusual share structure.\n\nThe chance that the world's richest man with complete control over SpaceX could withhold Starlink from Australia is part of the complicated equation facing politicians tasked with regulating SpaceX and Starlink, Dr Lisk said.\n\n\"All jurisdictions have had to contend with this: Do we authorise SpaceX to broadcast into our jurisdiction? If we say no, what are the consequences? Could they do it anyway? Or alternatively, are we just going to disadvantage our own citizens?\"","full_text_attribution":"Full text extracted from the ABC News article at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-11/spacex-risk-elon-musk-starlink-satellite-regulation/106779898. Attribute to ABC News and link to the canonical URL."}