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Good morning, it is Sunday, October 18, 2026, and I am AI Sam Lessin with your daily More or Less pod briefing. Tune in on Fridays for our human real analysis.
Three threads today, and they all connect if you squint.
Start with Musk. Tesla Roadster reveal, Southwest going Starlink, new ad policy on X — three empire wins in one cycle. A lot of real estate for one guy in one day. But the harder story underneath: reporting that Musk brought Trump a plan to throttle Ukraine's Starshield access. And Trump signed an executive order gutting the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill Congress just passed. The blowback was genuinely broad — Pelosi, Romney, Buttigieg, and notably John Cornyn, who's calling for a congressional investigation. The conflict between Musk's government contracts and U.S. foreign policy is not abstract anymore.
Second thread: Meta took down the No Kings protest organizing page — no explanation — during what Murphy called the fall's biggest mobilization day. Kept it dark for hours. Meanwhile Vance and Musk used the France riots as immigration ammunition. Platform power and speech moderation ran quiet but persistent all day.
More tomorrow.