SpaceX’s AI Expansion Reveals Extractive Tech Colonialism in $26.5T Space Economy Race
Original framing: “SpaceX Challenges AI Rivals for Control of $26.5 Trillion Market” — Bloomberg
The $26.5T market narrative echoes 19th-century railroad speculation, where financiers overvalued assets to extract capital while displacing communities. Cold War space races (e.g., Apollo, Shuttle) were state-driven, but today’s privatization mirrors 1980s deregulation, with AI as the new 'infrastructure.' The Outer Space Treaty (1967) is being hollowed out by corporate 'use rights,' repeating the enclosure of the commons.
SpaceX’s AI pivot is not a market disruption but a symptom of a deeper crisis: the enclosure of the cosmos by techno-feudal elites. The $26.
5T valuation is a speculative fiction that obscures the militarization of space (e.g., Starlink’s role in Ukraine), the erasure of Indigenous cosmologies, and the consolidation of power in the hands of a few billionaires. Historically, this mirrors the enclosure of the commons during the Industrial Revolution, where corporate actors privatized what was once held in trust for all. The solution lies in reclaiming space as a commons—through treaties that enshrine Indigenous stewardship, public AI governance, and community-owned infrastructure. Without this, the 'final frontier' will become just another frontier of extraction, where the sky is sold to the highest bidder while the Earth burns below.