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Elon Musk calls out Dish Network’s Charlie Ergen for trying to steal the 12 GHz band that is meant for space internet

Credit: SpaceX/Starlink

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Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk called out Dish Network’s Charlie Ergen for the company’s attempt to block Starlink from using the 12 GHz band. Earlier this month, the FCC granted SpaceX’s request to use the 12 GHz band for Earth Stations in Motions which will allow it to provide Starlink internet service to moving vehicles, boats, and aircraft.

Dish Network Is Trying To Convince The FCC To Deny Starlink the 12 GHz band

DISH Network has been trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny SpaceX and Starlink the needed status in the 12 GHz band.

Although Dish is only a satellite television provider, it is building a 5G mobile broadband network that might use spectrum from the 12 GHz band that it uses for its satellite TV services.

 

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OneWeb Stands Up For SpaceX

Earlier today, Drive Tesla Canda reported that OneWeb is supporting SpaceX in the fight over the 12 GHz spectrum.

The company sent a filing to the FCC urging it to reject the plan to open up the 12 GHz band for ground-based 5G. OneWeb said,

“This OneWeb study clearly illustrates that [satellite internet] operators would not be able to deploy user terminals in the proximity of a typical urban or suburban macro-cell base station deployment without receiving harmful interference… The MVDSS (12GHz for 5G) proponents have no history of building out real networks and instead are focused on lobbying the Commission for an unparalleled spectrum windfall based on deeply flawed technical studies without any corresponding benefit to unconnected Americans.”

Dish Network Claims SpaceX Is Spreading Misinformation

According to Dish Network, the study released by OneWeb is “another in-house, non-independent effort to discredit the scientifically proven feasibility of coexistence in the 12 GHz band.” According to Dish Network:

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“The study released today by OneWeb is another in-house, non-independent effort to discredit the scientifically proven feasibility of coexistence in the 12 GHz band. It is important to note that the FCC has already made it clear that any NGSO FSS company utilizing the 12 GHz band is doing so at its own risk and there should be no expectation of exclusivity within the band. The 5G for 12GHz Coalition remains committed to working with the FCC and stakeholders to reach a win-win solution for the American people. We will continue to pursue the facts that prove coexistence is possible in the band and advance the public interest.”

In the 5G for 12 GZ Coalition, Dish Network accused SpaceX of spreading misinformation.

“Starlink has initiated a public misinformation campaign by falsely telling customers and the public that coexistence is not possible in the band among Starlink and 5G services – despite nationwide data proving otherwise. This tactic, which is commonly used by Elon Musk, is not only disingenuous, but it promulgates an anti-5G narrative that is harmful to American consumers who deserve greater competition, connectivity options, and innovation. It also stands to threaten America’s global leadership in the 5G and technology sector as other countries outpace the nation in delivering next-generation services.”

Elon Musk Speaks Out Against Charlie Ergen.

In a response to Drive Tesla Canada’s article, Elon Musk said that Charlie Ergen is trying to steal the 12 GHz band meant for space internet. He added that this isn’t cool. Ergen is the co-founder and chairman of Dish Network.

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SpaceX Petition To The FCC

SpaceX has set up a petition requestion the FCC to reject the rule changes proposed by Dish for the 12 GHz spectrum. If the FCC doesn’t reject these rules, Starlink customers will experience interference for more than. 77% of the time. And total outages of services for 74% of the time. This would make Starlink, a service that is critical for disaster relief, unusable for most Americans.

You can sign the petition here. 

 

 

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Starlink Helps During Disasters.

We all know about how Starlink is helping in Ukraine. However, Starlink helped people in Louisiana after hurricane Ide blew through knocking out communications and power. I spoke with Elon Musk about this in my interview and I am going to end this article with what he said about Starlink.

“Starlink, because it is not dependent on any ground-based infrastructure, can provide internet connectivity to areas that have had floods or fires or earthquakes that t have destroyed the ground-based infrastructure.”

“That’s obviously extremely helpful for rescuing people and people being able to ‘I need to I need help. I need rescue.’ It’s like how do you find them? How do you communicate with them? Starlink can and has provided that in a number of situations.”

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Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge writer covering Tesla, Elon Musk, EVs, and clean energy & supports Tesla's mission. Johnna also interviewed Elon Musk and you can listen here

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Lucid unveils Lunar Robotaxi in bid to challenge Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race

Lucid’s Lunar robotaxi is gunning for Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race

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Lucid Lunar robotaxi concept [Credit: Rendering by TESLARATI]

Lucid Group pulled back the curtain on its purpose-built autonomous robotaxi platform dubbed the Lunar Concept. Announced at its New York investor day event, Lunar is arguably the company’s most ambitious concept yet, and a direct line of sight toward the autonomous ride haling market that Tesla looks to control.

At Lucid Investor Day 2026, the company introduced Lunar, a purpose-built robotaxi concept based on the Midsize platform.

A comparison to Tesla’s Cybercab is unavoidable. The concept of a Tesla robotaxi was first introduced by Elon Musk back in April 2019 during an event dubbed “Autonomy Day,” where he envisioned a network of self-driving Tesla vehicles transporting passengers while not in use by their owners. That vision took another major step in October 2024 when, Musk unveiled the Cybercab at the Tesla “We, Robot” event held at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 concept Cybercabs autonomously drove around the studio lot giving rides to attendees.

Tesla unveils the Robovan at ‘We, Robot’ event

Fast forward to today, and Tesla’s ambitions are finally materializing, but not without friction. As we recently reported, the Cybercab is being spotted with increasing frequency on public roads and across the grounds of Gigafactory Texas, suggesting that the company’s road testing and validation program is ramping meaningfully ahead of mass production. Tesla already operates a small scale robotaxi service in Austin using supervised Model Ys, but the Cybercab is designed from the ground up for high-volume, low-cost production, with Musk stating an eventual goal of producing one vehicle every 10 seconds.

At Lucid Investor Day 2026, the company introduced Lunar, a purpose-built robotaxi concept based on the Midsize platform.

Into this landscape steps Lucid’s Lunar. Built on the company’s all-new Midsize EV platform, which will also underpin consumer SUVs starting below $50,000. The Lunar mirrors the Cybercab’s core philosophy of having two seats, no driver controls, and a focus on fleet economics. The platform introduces Lucid’s redesigned Atlas electric drive unit, engineered to be smaller, lighter, and cheaper to manufacture at scale.

Unlike Tesla’s strategy of building its own ride hailing network from scratch, Lucid is partnering with Uber. The companies are said to be in advanced discussions to deploy Midsize platform vehicles at large scale, with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi publicly backing Lucid’s engineering credentials and autonomous-ready architecture.

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In the investor day event, Lucid also outlined a recurring software revenue model, with an in-vehicle AI assistant and monthly autonomous driving subscriptions priced between $69 and $199. This can be seen as a nod to the software revenue stream that Tesla has long championed with its Full Self-Driving subscription.

Tesla’s Cybercab is targeting a price point below $30k and with operating costs as low as 20 cents per mile. But with regulatory hurdles still ahead, the window for competition is open. Lucid’s Lunar may not have a launch date yet, but it arrives at a pivotal moment, and when the robotaxi race is no longer viewed as hypothetical. Rather, every serious EV player needs to come to bat on the same plate that Tesla has had countless practice swings on over the last seven years.

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Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

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Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.

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Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.

The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.

Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.

These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.

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Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.

Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.

The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.

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FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

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Credit: @SecWar/X

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.

The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.

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Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.

“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.

Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.

Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.

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Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.

SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.

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