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Giorgia Meloni is facing a political storm over the Italian government’s talks with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide secure communications, just as Europe is launching its own competing satellite initiative.
Musk said on Monday that his company is “ready to provide Italy [with] the most secure and advanced connection”. His comments on social media platform X came after Italian The government has confirmed ongoing discussions about the use of Starlink services for “encrypted data communications”.
The potential deal, reportedly worth up to $1.5 billion, has sparked outrage among Italy’s opposition politicians.
Centrist MP Carlo Calenda, a former industry minister, warned on Tuesday that “contracting Musk for such sensitive services – while he sponsors the European far right, spreads fake news and meddles in the internal politics of European states – cannot be an option”.
“It’s just not a solution compatible with national security,” Calenda said.
Elly Schlein, leader of the Democratic Party, the main opposition party, demanded that Meloni and her ministers appear in parliament to brief lawmakers on talks with SpaceX.
“If the price we have to pay for Musk’s friendship is $1.5 billion to put his satellites into orbit, we won’t accept that,” she said. “Italy will not sell out.”
Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that “if Musk wants to invest in Italy, he is welcome. If Musk wants Italian taxpayers’ money, Meloni must explain how, why and when.”
Meloni developed a close personal friendship with the richest man in the world, calling him “brilliant”. Musk described her as “authentic, honest and thoughtful”, and “even more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside”. Her office has denied media reports that she discussed a possible Starlink deal with US President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago last weekend, calling the suggestion “simply ridiculous”.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini dismissed the idea that there was any risk involved in the SpaceX deal and urged Meloni to hurry up the deal.
“Musk is the protagonist of innovation at the global level: a possible agreement with him that guarantees connectivity and modernity throughout Italy would not be a danger but an opportunity,” Salvini said. “I believe that the government will accelerate in this direction.”
Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told parliament last year that Rome had no choice but to hire SpaceX, given its existing monopoly on low-orbit satellite communications, and said a potential European alternative would take years to work.
Regardless of people’s personal opinions about Musk, Crosetto said, “if you need to have a low-orbit connection right now, you need to talk to Starlink.”
Last month, the EU signed a €10.6 billion contract for an ambitious project to put 260 satellites into low and medium Earth orbit to provide secure communications to EU member states by 2030. Telespazio, a joint venture between Italian defense company Leonardo and France’s Thales, among many European aviation and communications companies involved in the initiative called Iris².
Beniamino Irdi, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former foreign and security policy adviser to the Italian government, warned that Rome’s signing of Starlink for its government communications could anger Italy’s EU allies as they look to revive the bloc’s own ailing aviation sector with its multiorbital satellite project.
“It sends a political signal to the EU,” Irdi said. “Iris² is a symbol of European strategic autonomy, and the transition of a key EU member to a different solution can be interpreted as a sign of abandoning it.”
Still, he said the Starlink bid was a model of the kind of dilemmas U.S. allies are likely to face, as they have been pushed to compromise their long-term strategic interests to appease the incoming Trump administration and its most powerful backer, Musk.
“This could be the pattern of American foreign policy vis-à-vis its allies,” Irdi said. “Knowing that Musk plays such a large role — and that Trump is so transactional in nature — US allies will be tempted to cater to Musk as a private actor and put their core strategic interests at stake.”
Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi
