Pressure Systems edition
Musk and the Pentagon Accelerate the Machinery of War
June 26, 2026
What this edition shows
Elon Musk’s consolidation of SpaceX infrastructure and legal threats against DOGE critics signal a shift where corporate personhood and executive whim override public health and democratic oversight. As the Trump administration pressures defense manufacturers to restock the Pentagon’s kinetic arsenal after the Iran conflict, the boundary between private AI interests and state military power dissolves into a singular, unaccountable engine of production.
Reporting and analysis behind this edition 5 sources
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The Geopolitics of SpaceX and Elon Musk
Should one company—and one person—have this much power?
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Restocking the Pentagon
Trump urges defense manufacturers to speed up weapons production after the Iran war.
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Elon Musk Threatens To Sue Rep. Khanna For… Citing The Lancet About How DOGE Cuts Will Likely Lead To Millions Of Deaths
We’ve been pointing out for years that the supposedly “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk is one of the most aggressive abusers of state power to create chilling effects against his critics. So it should come as little surprise to anyone paying attention, that he’s at it again: threatening to sue Rep…
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Should AIs be people too?
The Dutch East India company was among the first modern companies to receive legal personhood. Should we reconsider what personhood means in the age of AI?
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The true danger of AI may lie in its reflection of us, warns Anna Goldsworthy
ThisisEngineering/Pexels “Just as we always suspected”, writes musician and writer Anna Goldsworthy in her new Quarterly Essay on AI, “the god that may destroy us is the god of ourselves.” This sentence captures the core of the essay: a personal meditation on what AI reveals about humanity. She pond…