A former Clinton cabinet secretary just went on podcast and called for the federal government to seize SpaceX and Starlink — and if you still think the authoritarian left believes in private enterprise or free speech, you're not paying attention.

Robert Reich, who served as Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, used his Oct. 24 podcast to urge Democrats to "defund Musk" and begin "laying the groundwork for nationalizing Starlink and SpaceX." His reasoning? Musk holds too much power. "It should be a public corporation," Reich declared. "We should not ever have that kind of power in one person's hands."

Since when does the government get to confiscate a private company because a bureaucrat decides its owner is too powerful? That's not regulation. That's looting with a subpoena.

Reich claimed that "75% of his wealth is dependent on taxpayers who are buying Starlink systems for the Department of Defense." He offered no evidence for that figure, and Fox Business noted he didn't provide any. SpaceX has indeed secured billions in federal contracts with NASA and the Pentagon — but those are contracts for services rendered, not charity. The Pentagon buys Starlink because it works. NASA uses SpaceX because the company delivers. That's called commerce, not dependency.

What Reich really objects to is that Musk owns X and uses it to speak to 260 million followers without permission from the gatekeepers. Reich himself admitted as much, warning that Musk would "be using his 360 million followers or 260 million followers on X to give him a buttress against" congressional investigations. Translation: the man has a megaphone and we can't control him, so we'll take his companies instead.

Musk's response was blunt: "Stealing companies is a serious crime. Prison for Reich." He's right about the first part. The second is rhetorical heat — but so is calling for the government to nationalize a private enterprise because you don't like the owner's politics.

Meanwhile, the company Reich wants to seize is actually expanding competition in a market that desperately needs it. Fox News reports that SpaceX is pursuing access to at least 80,000 cell sites across the United States, negotiating with infrastructure companies like Crown Castle to turn Starlink into a wireless carrier that could challenge Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Crown Castle CEO Chris Hillabrant confirmed on an Oct. 21 earnings call: "You can assume that we're talking to all parties." That's a man who built rockets and satellite networks now trying to break up the telecom oligopoly — and Reich's answer is to hand the whole thing to the federal government.

The same people who spent four years warning about "threats to democracy" are now explicitly calling for the state to seize the tools of free communication and private enterprise. They don't fear monopoly. They fear independence.

Reich acknowledged that nationalization would require a Democratic administration. He also predicted that if Democrats take the House and Senate, Musk will be targeted. Consider that a warning — not about Musk, but about what happens when a political party decides the proper response to innovation it can't control is confiscation.