L'AFFARE STARLINK

The Musk-Linked Scandal You’ve Never Heard Of

By Rob Waldeck and Joe Fionda

A sweeping bribery investigation in Italy involving Elon Musk’s SpaceX may not only entangle the Trump-allied billionaire but also governments on both sides of the Atlantic. The Trump administration has relied heavily on Musk to provide domestic political dynamism through a government efficiency drive that has set off a wave of voter discontent and spawned dozens of lawsuits. Italian law professor Stefano Maffei told The (b)(7)(D) that the case is in its initial, investigative stage. At this point, Elon Musk has neither been charged nor placed on the Register of Suspects, which Maffei described as a list of those under investigation.

The Italian bribery investigation has led to Musk’s closest Italian associate, SpaceX consultant, Andrea Stroppa, being placed under investigation for involvement in corruption related to a SpaceX contract. On 11 October 2024, the Italian police closed in on Stroppa, seized his devices, and placed him on the Register of Suspects for complicity in corruption. Maffei told The (b)(7)(d) that being placed on the Register of Suspects is preliminary to being indicted.

According to case documents quoted by Italian state broadcaster RAI, and Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, Stroppa is alleged to have exchanged inside information on SpaceX’s offer to provide secure Starlink communications to the Italian military, police, and diplomatic services for subcontracts from SpaceX. Recent reporting in Il Fatto Quotidiano, revealed that Italian prosecutors are seeking communications between Stroppa and Musk to determine if Musk directed Stroppa or had any advance knowledge of his activities.

The affair may also complicate the work of Attorney General Pam Bondi. Trump’s new executive order regarding the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, directs the Attorney General to decide to move forward or discontinue all current or potential foreign bribery cases involving U.S. companies, placing any Musk FCPA case squarely in front of Bondi. Legal experts told The (b)(7)(D) that the conduct alleged by Italian authorities could create FCPA liability for individuals at SpaceX, including Musk.

INSIDE AND OUTSIDE

The Italian bribery case stems from a multi-year investigation into alleged corruption in government contracting in Italy. On the inside, prosecutors allege a director of the Italian state-owned procurement corporation Sogei, Paolino Iorio, directed contracts to favored prime contractors. On the outside, prosecutors say entrepreneur Massimo Rossi ran a ring of companies who got subcontracts from the prime contracts after Rossi paid bribes to Iorio and others in the government. On 14 October 2024, Italy’s financial and tax police, the Guardia di Finanza, arrested Iorio and Rossi in the act, allegedly just as Iorio was pocketing a €15,000 bribe handed to him by Rossi. Prosecutors allege that among the subcontractors Rossi worked with was Cristiano Rufini, the CEO of IT subcontractor Olidata S.p.A.

Prosecutors allege that Rossi and Rufini had a second inside man: Italian Navy Frigate Captain Antonio Masala of the Italian Defense General Staff. Rossi, prosecutors claim, worked with Masala to rig a bid in January 2024. Masala was allegedly paid for his inside role via €1,000,000 in false invoices. Prosecutors noted that Masala’s wife also owned 4.8% of the stock of Olidata.

Italian prosecutors also allege that beginning in April 2024, Rufini and Masala sought to obtain subcontracts as part of a secret €1.5 billion ($1.55 billion) SpaceX proposal to provide Starlink secure satellite communications for Italy’s military, police, and embassies. According to Italian state broadcaster RAI and the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, Masala approached SpaceX consultant Andrea Stroppa, who was described in court documents and multiple press reports as “Musk’s man in Italy.” Investigators allege Masala offered Stroppa inside information on the Italian government’s deliberations regarding the SpaceX proposal in exchange for a promise to name Olidata and a second company, Vipa Impianti S.r.L. as subcontractors for SpaceX. Prosecutors further claim that Masala passed Stroppa four government documents and inside information from meetings of the Italian Military Cabinet and the Ministry of Defense about the SpaceX proposal.

Masala also arranged a meeting for Stroppa in June 2024 with his commander, Lt. General Giovanni Gagliano. Gagliano, however, was suspicious of Masala’s efforts to push the Starlink case. Masala was caught on telephone intercepts discussing Gaglino’s suspicions of his advocacy for Starlink.

According to investigators, on 29 August 2024, Masala attended a meeting where he obtained a copy of a confidential Italian Foreign Ministry document regarding the evaluataion of the Starlink proposal. Prosecutors claim Masala then passed the document to Stroppa, who told allegedly told him there were 40 people waiting to review it.

Professor Maffei told The (b)(7)(D) that the charges were preliminary, and suspects would only be formally charged with a crime if the prosecution later requested indictments. Maffei explained that in Italy, the prosecution of crimes falls under the judicial branch of government. Placing Stroppa on the list of suspects, Maffei told The (b)(7)(D), allowed police to seek the warrants to obtain his phones and electronic devices.

Stroppa could not be reached for comment. A lawyer for Iorio declined to comment to The (b)(7)(D). A lawyer for Rossi did not reply to a request for comment from The (b)(7)(D).

A lawyer for Rufini, Roberto De Vita, said: “The so-called ‘Starlink file’ to date has not led to the identification of any evidence of incorrect conduct in relations with the companies of Elon Musk or Mr. Cristiano Rufini and Olidata … the professional, personal and as president of the company behavior of Mr. Rufini and his actions in institutional relations have always been characterized by transparency and fairness.”

TRUMP LAUNCHES A POLICY OF ENFORCEMENT DISCRETION

Law Professor Mike Koehler spoke with The (b)(7)(D) about how the Starlink bribery investigation could involve U.S. law. Koehler is an expert on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, who explained that it is a federal crime for a U.S. company or individual to bribe a foreign official. Professor Koehler said that the SpaceX bribery allegations “could perhaps be an FCPA issue” because SpaceX is a U.S. company and Musk is a U.S. citizen, making SpaceX and Musk “clearly subject” to the FCPA. Professor Koehler further explained that companies like SpaceX cannot use indirect means to provide things of value to foreign officials to influence actions on their behalf.

Koehler added that for executives of U.S. companies like SpaceX, prosecutors would only need to show “conscious disregard” for the possibility that illegal exchanges with government officials were occurring. Prosecutors would not need to prove that Starlink officials directly ordered bribes to be paid. Koehler said that the key question is were any executives “aware or were willfully blind or acted with conscious disregard of the alleged conduct.”

The FCPA includes a statutory defense section that states if an action is legal in the foreign country where the alleged acts occurred, it is a defense to FCPA charges. However, when asked about this possible defense under U.S. law, Professor Maffei told The (b)(7)(D) that if Masala had turned over a confidential document to Stroppa, his actions would be illegal under Italian law. Maffei explained that the allegations were that Masala, as a public officer acting in his official capacity, revealed information he was forbidden from discussing.

Due to recent developments, any U.S.-led investigation of Stroppa, SpaceX or Musk for the alleged Starlink bribery scheme in Italy is now entirely in the hands of Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi. Shortly after taking office, On 5 February, Bondi issued a memorandum on criminal prosecutions, altering the priorities of the DOJ’s criminal division to “total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations.” The Bondi memorandum directed Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutors to prioritize cases that involve bribery of foreign officials that facilitate “the criminal operations of Cartels and TCOs, and shift focus away from investigations and cases that do not involve such a connection.”

Days later, President Trump issued an executive order empowering Bondi to end, limit, or refuse to initiate all FCPA investigations. This would include any potential or current investigation of the allegations facing Stroppa for his work on behalf of SpaceX. Trump’s new executive order sharply limited FCPA enforcement and instituted a policy of “enforcement discretion,” placing the decision to continue any current FCPA case squarely in the hands of the Attorney General. The order imposed a 180-day moratorium on initiating FCPA investigations or enforcement actions “unless the Attorney General determines that an individual exception should be made.” The policy of enforcement discretion extended to current cases, authorizing Bondi to “review in detail all existing FCPA investigations or enforcement actions and take appropriate action with respect to such matters to restore proper bounds on FCPA enforcement and preserve Presidential foreign policy prerogatives.”

The Trump order requires Bondi to issue “updated guidelines or policies” to align FCPA enforcement with Trump’s foreign policy. All FCPA cases “initiated or continued” after the revised guidelines or policies are issued, “must be specifically authorized by the Attorney General.” This policy effectively places enforcement of every FCPA case into the hands of a political appointee, Pam Bondi, including ones involving Musk-owned companies.

Professor Koehler cautioned that Trump’s long-standing opposition to the FCPA was well-known and shared by some Democrats, including Senator Amy Klobuchar.

HI I’M ELON

In many ways, the 31-year-old Stroppa resembles the group of young programmers Musk has surrounded himself with at DOGE. As a teenager, Stroppa was arrested for participating in computer attacks carried out by Anonymous Italia. However, the 17-year-old Stroppa received a judicial pardon.

Later, as a social media and security researcher, Stroppa and a colleague uncovered large numbers of fake followers and bots on Twitter, the predecessor to Musk’s X. In an interview, Stroppa told Il Foglio that he wrote to Musk to thank him after the billionaire began citing his research on social media. Musk soon followed Stroppa on Twitter. Stroppa recounted to Il Foglio that one day his phone rang with a call from an unknown U.S. number. It was Musk, who simply said “Hi, I’m Elon.”

In the Il Foglio interview Stroppa said he is friends with the billionaire. However, Stroppa is more than a friend to Musk—Stroppa also began working for Twitter in 2022, focusing on combating child pornography after Musk bought the acquired the platform. Stroppa told Il Foglio that he now works as “an advisor for SpaceX and Starlink.” Other news reports described Stroppa as a SpaceX employee based in Rome.

Stroppa described his role at Starlink to Il Foglio: “I study projects. I talk to technicians. I talk to companies, I explain how Musk's products work and why those companies should become Starlink customers,” a group which included “Italian institutions and the state.”

In 2023 Stroppa suggested to Elon Musk that he visit Italy and arranged the billionaire’s June 2023 meeting with Prime Minister Meloni. Stroppa also accompanied Musk to Atreju, the gathering of the Fratelli d’Italia party presided over by Meloni in December 2023. A photo captured Stroppa seated with Musk and Meloni at the event.

Stroppa has been well rewarded by Musk. An unsealed June 2023 filing in a U.S. court case identifies Andrea Stroppa as one of only 100 owners of X Holdings Corp., the parent company of X.

THE PRECIOUS GENIUS

Starlink’s fortunes in Italy appear closely tied to Musk’s relationship with Meloni. On 23 September, Musk presented the Italian Prime Minister with the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen Award in New York. Musk described Meloni as “someone who is even more beautiful inside than outside.” Meloni referred to Musk as a “precious genius.”

On 7 December 2024, Trump and Musk met with Meloni on the sidelines of a dinner in Paris hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral. The next day Trump told the New York Post that Meloni “was great” and “had a lot of energy.”

Press reports indicate that Musk’s SpaceX first approached the Meloni government in the fall of 2023 about selling encrypted Starlink communications to the Italian government. Just days before Musk attended the December 2023 Atreju party with Stroppa and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, SpaceX representatives made a presentation to the Meloni government at Chigi Palace, the Italian Prime Minister’s official residence. The contract proposal remained secret until the Sogei case broke into the press in mid-October 2024.

A second, larger, contract proposal involved Starlink providing public satellite broadband internet to areas in Italy where fiber optic cable companies had not yet reached. The €2.5 billion contract would be funded through European Union COVID recovery funds. The Meloni government’s proposed Space Bill included a provision authorizing the allocation of government funds to satellite internet providers.

Professor Maffei told The (b)(7)(D) that Italy was making significant efforts to attract EU COVID recovery funds and that “there were a lot of “middle-men with big money in Italy” attempting to secure the funds.

PANIC AT PALAZZO CHIGI

Since the exposure of Stroppa’s connection to the Sogei scandal, the election of Donald Trump, and the rise of Musk’s DOGE, the Meloni government’s enthusiasm for Starlink communications has somewhat diminished. In December, Meloni told the press that Starlink was under consideration for the secure communications contract but denied negotiating with Musk directly. In January, Musk announced that he was ready to provide satellite services to the Italian government.

But Musk’s alliance with Trump, coupled with Trump’s favoring of Russia in the Ukraine conflict, appears to have derailed Musk’s pursuit of billions in Italian government funds. In recent weeks, the Meloni government has begun to distance itself from the Starlink broadband proposal. On 19 February, Industry Minister Adolfo Urso informed the Italian Chamber of Deputies that the Meloni government was developing a proposal for an Italian low-orbit communications network in collaboration with Italian companies.

Among those strongly opposed to allowing a foreign corporation to control the secret communications of the Italian state is Italian President Sergio Mattarella, according to reporting from Bloomberg News.

Nevertheless, on 6 March, the Italian Parliament rejected an amendment to the Space Bill proposed by the opposition Partito Democratico which would have required the Italian government to use European and Italian satellite companies to provide Italy with secure communications. After Stroppa posted on X that Matarella was blocking the deal, Musk responded to his man in Italy by saying that he would be honored to meet with the Italian President. Matarella had no comment as of Monday.

NEVER GIVE UP

As the stories about Stroppa and his relationship to Musk proliferated in the Italian press, Stroppa took to X to rally support. On 17 October 2024, at 5:02 a.m. Eastern Time, Stroppa posted a Lord of The Rings meme with the caption, “Never give up.” One minute later, Musk replied: “Never.”

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