5mo ago

Billionaire Carlos Slim cancels $22 billion in Starlink orders due to Elon Musk’s outburst

Billionaire Carlos Slim Reportedly Cancels $22 Billion in Starlink Orders Due to Elon Musk's Outburst - CleanTechnica

Summary

Carlos Slim’s telecom giant, América Móvil, canceled $22 billion in planned Starlink orders after Elon Musk insinuated Slim had ties to drug cartels.

The decision, made within hours of Musk’s tweet, costs Musk his main partner in 25 countries and shifts business to Chinese and European competitors, further reducing U.S. commercial influence.

Musk’s increasing political entanglements and conspiracy-laden posts are alienating key business partners and consumers, with potential ripple effects on Tesla sales.

56 comments

It's nice that Elon is getting hit where it hurts. Hopefully the EU benefits from this.
- Am I the only one that's not worried about the future? As a non-American I mean, it feels like we're about to have more global unity and prosperity entirely at the expense of America, whereby it'll become the futures new "No Man's Land" of proxy-wars, weapons testing, and religious fundamentalism to satiate the MIC while everywhere else gets to make new trade partnerships and are free to explore more political possibilities without having to pay their dues to Uncle Sam.
  Maybe i'm being too optimistic, but it sorta feels like the winds are blowing towards a new global alliance of Europe and NATO teaming up with China, purposefully excluding and at the expense of Russia and USA. Feels like the Cold War superpowers have both lost, Russia successfully defeating USA but not without collapsing themselves too. Almost as though this war in Ukraine was just part of the mechanism to collapse the USA/EU Atlantic alliance, and the war can only be over once Russia and USA are through.
  
  That's an excellent point. Trump is replacing all the competent people with loyalists, without remembering a basic fact: It is better to keep your potential enemy inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.
  All he has done is force all of his most competent leaders to join the opposition, as well as tens of thousands of inside operatives who are now unemployed, but know better than anyone how the system operates. There are are also a lot of people still on the inside, who hate what has happened to their workplace and their colleagues, and won't be so compliant. They'll be perfect moles for any espionage/sabotage.
  Eventually they'll get organized, and it will be the competent, motivated Patriots against the treasonous MAGA morons.
- Eutelsat and Amazon's Kuiper just got one more pre-order.
  
  Well, Amazon isn't exactly great for the EU, but at least it's not Elon, IG...
- Shame that he's going to bring the rest of us down with him
- I've managed to not lose a single cent from all my others investments combined thanks to the little I had in Eutelsat. I'm for sure reinforcing that one. Also, shorting tesla has been fun, but I don't have the means to do it at a risk safe scale.
  After Tesla, starlink should come next (X will die organically) so unfortunate starlink is not public to short.
  
  Wah, good for you!
  I'm invested solely in an all-world ETF, so I'm getting hit pretty hard by the market crashes in the US. It doesn't really bother me too much, considering my time horizon, but still.
  Good luck with your money!
Feels so good seeing Elon Musk get kicked in the dick.
- He is kicking himself in the dick.
  Kinda reminds me of Kanye West TBH.
  
  Yesterday someone posted a thread that claimed that was the actual intention. Awfully questionable but it’s a funny enough idea to spread anyway ……
  The claim is some economic mastermind in the administration believes our entire problem is interest rates and the dollar is too strong. Ok as far as that goes, but the further claim is all the tariffs, flip flopping, broken contracts are just to persuade countries to kick us in the dick until we feel better. They may not have used those exact words
  
  Kanye is not a gay fish!
  
  He ruined his dick with his ketamine habit
  
  No, they said it right.
  In this case, Elon is mouthing off like a bitch, and someone else kicked him in the dick for it (if it did really happen).
  That's really really important, because usually these guys do shit, then no one kicks them in the dick. That's what allows them to continue doing the shit.
- I doubt he feels it. Apparently it got broken in failed vanity surgery. So, he is now a chinless, balding, dickless Wonder Boy under all that surgery. One wonders how he got to the belief that his defective genes were the ones that needed propagation.
And here I was feeling good about myself after I canceled an order of 4 units for work. But every magnitude matters, I guess.
EDIT: Because starlink customer support is awful. It is a good product in theory, but because of their lack of service update, such as when they change stuff that affects us, it cannot be relied upon in production environments. And in todays political climate I simply don't want him to get any more money from me. We managed with 2mbit VSAT before, and will do so again.
- Honestly, more small orders getting cancelled is also awesome, good on you!
- Thank you for your service!
- I've never been a customer so this might be a dumb question. What does 4 units represent?
  
  In terms of what? Cost? No idea, that's some other departments problem.
  As for use case, it is for outfitting two ships with internet access better than the usual 2-5mbit VSAT. Two antennae each to account for loss of coverage on one antenna due to the superstructure possibly getting in the way.
  We use it to improve remote operation of offshore hardware, but starlink isn't as good as it used to be. When first installing it in January 2021 it was great, 150mbit+, but as more and more people bought starlink, performance dropped significantly.
Just when the new EU launcher Ariane 6 is finally fully operational. That's convenient. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/europes-ariane-6-stages-first-commercial-launch-2025-03-06/
- I'd be very surprised if OneWeb ever launches on Ariane 6. It is not build for cheap LEO launches at all afaik. But maybe some ride shares, who knows.
- The problem is that Ariane 6 is already an obsolete previous-gen design, not one part is reusable. SpaceX is the dominant launch provider for a very solid reason and ultimately the only way to compete with them is going to be to adopt their ideas and methodologies.
Let's bring back being decent to people.
Carlos also cancelled a more immediate $7 billion business plan with Starlink, which makes it closer to 30 billion lost.
- Don't worry, Trump is buying a Tesla. That'll make up for it.
Good. Seeing a Nazi face consequences for his actions in real time is so satisfying.
That's an uplifting news
Dear Slim, I wrote you but you still ain't calling.
- I left my cell, my pager and my home phone at the bottom
I have some doubts. Only small or weird outlets have any news on this and there is no good original source linked anywhere.
The Canadian Press explains a potential path by which this claim could have arisen, namely that Slim's company América Móvil had stated in an earnings call that they were going to invest 22 billion pesos (! not USD) in infrastructure over three years and they didn't have plans to invest it in Starlink, instead looking more towards two other satellite companies, and only for rural backbones where laying fiber would be more expensive.
- I mean, Carlos Slim is not from the USA, so most news were in spanish:
  https://www.sdpnoticias.com/mexico/a-elon-musk-le-salio-caro-el-chiste-de-carlos-slim-su-mensaje-le-costo-a-starlink-una-inversion-por-7000-millones-de-dolares/
  https://larepublica.pe/mundo/2025/02/24/el-acuerdo-entre-carlos-slim-y-elon-musk-que-impulsaba-starlink-en-america-latina-pero-termino-en-fracaso-de-siete-mil-quinietos-millones-de-dolares-1896288
Deserved.
Great news
Good.
lol
I mean he does have ties to drug cartels, but you don't say it
- What ties? Can you elaborate?

56 comments