Few people know it, but there are several components of space rockets that Elon Musk spear that are made in Italy. Suffice it to say that some steel containers are made in Corato, Puglia. But there’s everything. Last week, two big shots of the American group came to Italy: the person responsible for the external structure of the rockets and the person responsible for Starlink growth in Europe.
They toured the suppliers of the world’s largest space company. Its valuation is around 175 billion dollars: it alone is worth practically a quarter of the entire capitalization of the Italian stock exchange. SpaceX also controls the internal division that deals with telecommunications satellites, StarLink, which allows internet connection from any corner of the Earth at competitive prices. The latter has just lowered the cost of the commercial offer in Italy, which has become the most convenient in Europe. Musk’s managers, accompanied by Andrea Stroppa, Elon’s brilliant correspondent in the Bel Paese, toured the Roman buildings to understand how and whether to focus on Italy as a platform for developing their business in the Old Continent. There have been contacts at the highest level at the Ministry of Made in Italy (Adolfo Urso), at the Ministry of Infrastructure (Matteo Salvini) and at Palazzo Chigi. Now the ball is in the hands of Italian institutions to try to capture American investments. Which could make it easier to bring high-bandwidth internet even to the most inaccessible areas.
“We need children, not migrants. And the green doesn’t make us unhappy.” Musk’s lesson
THE CDP-ACRE VORTEX
The top management of the company will expire in March Cdp and in the corridors of buildings across half of Italy they talk about nothing else. Rome, Milan and Turin are the three cities involved in this renewal. In fact, it is not just a banally political question. In fact, the powerful fund is owned by 61 powerful banking foundations which, with 15 percent of the capital, represent the president. And yet there is trouble even in the area of Foundations. Follow the thread, which is intricate. The association of Savings Banks, which brings them together, must also change its leaders, since its number one, Francesco Profumo, must leave the presidency of Compagnia San Paolo, a shareholder of Intesa. Today, therefore, theAcre is led by a man from Turin (in the sense that it is an expression of those buildings) and, therefore, according to the Scala tam tams, the seat should now go to a Milanese, that is to Giovanni Azzone, new president of the Cariplo Foundation (very close to the super director Guzzetti). In the middle there is the only real cumbersome personality of this whole story: Fabrizio Palenzona. Someone who has been around the Foundations for thirty years. He knows politics better than anyone. With a twist he has just become number one in the CRT and, despite not being a candidate, he is like Draghi for the European Commission: the reserve that no one wants to discover. So here is the first variable: who will decide the president of the CDP, which today also has a Milanese manager at the top (the excellent Gorno Tempini)? According to these geographical or parochial alternations, as you prefer, we would find a Milanese at Acri, who would have to appoint a Turin to the Cdp. Things are not that simple, in fact. Suffice it to say that the current president of Acri and the San Paolo company (Francesco Profumo) should be replaced by a gentleman who is now in Washington, Marco Gilli, as scientific attaché of the embassy, considered the mentor of the current mayor, and which for this reason more than one in Turin consider to be in the balance.
Once the president is made, so to speak, it’s time to find the CEO. Dario Scannapieco is the outgoing. He managed to forge a good relationship with those who matter at Palazzo Chigi. And he therefore has more than one chance of being reconfirmed. It must be said that all those who have passed through the Cassa have always said that in just the three years of the mandate they manage to achieve very little: the initial six months are lost in understanding what to do and the final six months are used to do what is required to be confirmed. On the part of the Ministry of Economy, which obviously counts in the choice, they would instead be oriented towards making a change: in pole position would be the current number one of Ita, Antonio Turicchi, who moreover has already been general director of the Cassa in another geological era (2003-2009). A small tug of war between Palazzo Chigi and via XX Settembre, which will be resolved by putting all the next appointments on the table, not just those of the CDP.
LESS UNDERSTANDING AT THE FIRST OF THE SCALE
There Before the Staircase it is also an event for Italian finance. But, above all, it exaggerates, a commitment for those who sit on the board of directors of Edison. The French, owners of the historic electricity company, don’t joke and work hard and above all, a bit like the Romans, they don’t really understand this story which is why everything stops in Milan for Sant’Ambrogio. Furthermore, they are supersponsors of the Prima della Scala, which takes place on December 7th. A good reason to convene, in person, a board of directors right in Sant’Ambrogio. Less Intesa, in the sense of the bank led by Carlo Messina, instead at Prima. The number one of the most important Italian bank has more than halved the tickets it offered to its most important interlocutors. There are more than a hundred gifts that have evaporated and that the administration of the Scaliger institution has managed to sell otherwise in fiat. Someone might have been offended. But Maessina decided to donate the cost savings to extra social help. And we are talking about hundreds of thousands of euros.
The article Two big shots of Elon Musk in Italy: those (undisclosed) meetings with the government comes from Nicola Porro.