“What is Starlink?” Trump speaks to Elon Musk, Starship and SpaceX in election night victory speech (video)

President-elect Donald Trump praised Elon Musk and SpaceX during his election night victory speech.

In a speech broadcast on Tuesday evening (November 5), Trump recalled watching the most recent and fifth flight test of SpaceX’s Starship rocket as well as his conversations with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk about the use of company resources Starlink satellites in North Carolina following the deadly effects of Hurricane Helen.

“And I called Elon. I asked: “Elon, is that you?” He said, “Yes, it was.” I said, “Who else can do this?” “No”. Can China do it? “No”, Trump said in a speechremembering watching the last Starship test, in which a massive rocket was caught by the hands of “chopsticks” at the SpaceX launch tower. “Can the United States do this except you?” “No, no one can do that.” I said, “That’s why I love you, Elon, that’s great.”

two men stand on stage behind microphones — Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump during a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, USA, on Saturday, October 5, 2024. (Image credit: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump said he had to put the donor on hold for 45 minutes while watching the test flight, which he said was “a space age movie or something.”

The president-elect then recalled calling Musk after Hurricane Helen after receiving numerous inquiries about using SpaceX. Starlink satelliteswhich have been used to provide vital communications services following natural disasters and conflicts around the world. Following the devastation of Hurricanes Helen and Milton, SpaceX provided Starlink broadband services. free until the end of 2024excluding equipment costs, to all users living in areas affected by hurricanes.

“People from North Carolina came to me and said, ‘Can you even talk to Elon Musk? We need Starlink,” Trump said during his victory speech, adding: “I said, ‘What is Starlink?’ ?'”

“What the hell is this?” Trump said when he asked Musk about Starlink. “He said, ‘This is a very good communication system.’ I said, “Elon, they really, really need this in North Carolina. Can you have it?

“He achieved it so quickly. It was incredible,” Trump said. “And it was great. This saved many lives. He saved many lives. But he’s a character. He’s a special guy. He’s a super genius. We must protect our geniuses. We don’t have that. many of them. We have to do this.”

Musk supported Trump in the 2024 presidential elections. The Trump administration has been a strong advocate for deregulating US industry, an issue that Musk and SpaceX have been vocal about throughout the SpaceX Starship rocket testing campaign.

Musk called for resignation Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Michael Whitaker in September after the FAA fined SpaceX for two launch violations. SpaceX threatened to sue the FAA for “over-regulation” in response.

Trump has advertised his achievements was involved in American spaceflight for many years, stating that one of the proudest accomplishments of his first term was the creation of the US Space Force. In 2020, the Trump campaign released a 2.5 minute video titled “Make Space Great Again,” which praised his administration’s role in the SpaceX Demo-2 mission, the first orbital human spaceflight launched from the United States since the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2011.