Negotiations between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s right-wing government and Elon Musk‘s SpaceX over a Starlink deal reportedly worth $1.6 billion are sparking outrage in Italy‘s parliament.
On Saturday, the spat prompted Musk to ask to meet personally with President Sergio Mattarella in what appears to be a last-ditch attempt to salvage the deal.
Italian opposition parties are trumpeting their aversion to the proposed five-year deal under which Starlink, the satellite internet company operated by SpaceX, would provide a secure telecommunications system for Italian diplomats and military forces. The potential partnership comes as turbulence is intensifying between the U.S. and Europe over U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
Musk added fuel to the fire on Sunday by writing on his social media platform X that Ukraine’s “entire front line would collapse” if he turned off Starlink, which is being used extensively by the Ukrainian military.
Late on Saturday, also on X, Musk said that it “would be an honor to speak with President Mattarella,” in an apparent last-ditch attempt to salvage the deal that is being pushed by Meloni’s coalition amid fierce debate. President Mattarella is believed to be among those who strongly support considering different options such as Franco-British Starlink rival OneWeb.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the Democratic Party, Italy’s largest opposition group, said on Sunday that Meloni should “change course immediately.”
“How can Giorgia Meloni want to hand over the keys to Italy’s national security to Musk after hearing his latest, grave remarks?” she said.
Carlo Calenda, leader of Italy’s centrist Azione party, said on Monday that Musk is “not a reliable partner.”
In January, Meloni cozied up to both the tech billionaire and Trump when she travelled to his Mar-a-Lago retreat after Italian journalist Cecilia Sala was arrested in Tehran on trumped-up charges of breaching Islamic law. Shortly after Meloni’s return to Rome, Sala was released in what Meloni described as “diplomatic triangulation” between the U.S., Italy and Iran. The New York Times reported that Musk helped secure Sala’s release by reaching out to Iran’s ambassador to the UN.
“Musk is a very transactional person. He will do whatever he can to expand his business empire in Europe,” said Teresa Coratella, an executive at the European Council on Foreign Relations, in an interview with the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. “With her relationship to Musk, Meloni wants to prove that she’s a special case within Europe.”
Meloni has been positioning herself as the European leader who can be the crucial bridgehead between Europe and the U.S. administration. She attended Trump’s inauguration in January and recently headlined the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, which was attended by Trump and Musk.
