Just because Elon Musk left DOGE doesn’t mean the Tesla Takedown protest movement is over. The group is now setting its sights on Musk’s Starlink business by urging T-Mobile to cancel its partnership with SpaceX on a cellular Starlink service.
The carrier is preparing to launch the service, also known as T-Satellite, in July. But on Tuesday, the Tesla Takedown movement called on T-Mobile to cut ties with SpaceX, citing Musk’s controversial politics.
“When T-Mobile launches its ‘T-Satellite’ program this July, Musk stands to gain billions. That means that T-Mobile is funding Elon Musk’s attacks on democracy and his support of far-right authoritarian governments around the world,” says an online petition from Tesla Takedown.
The protest movement said it started the campaign after sending a three-page letter to T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert that said partnering with SpaceX would conflict with the carrier’s own values.
“Every dollar that goes to Starlink is helping to fund a full-scale assault on the principles that T-Mobile is famous for, and that tens of millions of your customers care about,” the group wrote, citing Sievert’s 2022 pledge for the company to be “even greater force for good.”
(Credit: T-Mobile)
In addition, the letter says T-Mobile risks facing consumer backlash if it continues to partner with SpaceX. (Musk’s other business, Tesla, is already experiencing declining sales.) The group also requested a meeting with T-Mobile, but says the carrier never answered.
T-Mobile and SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In the meantime, the Tesla Takedown movement said in an email that it plans “to mobilize tens of thousands of T-Mobile customers to demand that T-Mobile stop fueling Musk’s far-right political agenda.”
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The protest movement also says it’s launching the campaign with 25 other union and advocacy groups, including the Communications Workers of America. In a statement, CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. also took issue with the Trump administration revising the federal “BEAD” program to potentially shift more funding from fiber installations to Starlink.
“His [Elon Musk’s] Starlink project threatens to leave rural Americans behind by siphoning public funds from high-quality, job-creating fiber optic internet service,” Cummings Jr. said. “By aligning themselves with Elon Musk, T-Mobile’s leaders are once again showing their customers whose side they are really on.”
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About Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
