Maxwell School News and Commentary

Musk’s “significant financial resources, established business ties in China through Tesla, and prominence in the social media industry via X make him a potential candidate for brokering a deal acceptable to multiple stakeholders,” says Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science.

Low income-households will need a month or more to recover financially and that will lead to more issues and needs, says Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs. “I would suspect to see increased need for food from food banks. Most likely going to have more utilities going unpaid,” she says.

“Trump's threats to use military force to acquire Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, undercut efforts to preserve this core principle, and implicitly legitimate President Putin's own efforts to gain territory by force,” says Renée de Nevers, associate professor of public administration and international affairs.

“We well know Trump does not accept the science of climate change and the reality of climate change. He's very dismissive of it,” says Robert Wilson, associate professor of geography and the environment. “Certainly, I've seen no news account over the past week where he's acknowledged that climate change has played a role in making the wildfires in California worse.”

“The New Glenn rocket is all about significantly reducing the cost of access to space,” says Sean O'Keefe, University Professor and former NASA administrator. “This will give SpaceX some serious competition. ...These are exciting times in the space business.”

“Both drought and heat are known to be more likely in the context of human-caused climate change, so the fires burning now cannot be dismissed as anomalous events,” says Jacob Bendix, professor emeritus of geography and the environment.

“Some people compare AI to the atomic bomb. I don't think this is that kind of risk, but there are risks. There are concerns—ethical, economic, social and cultural—that have to be addressed before it's too late. And I think one of our best tools to do that is policy,” says University Professor Hamid Ekbia.

“Ukraine joining NATO will mean the readiness of the western countries to defend their own sovereignty and remain subjects of international relations, and such determination in itself is a deterrent," says Tetiana Hranchak, visiting assistant teaching professor in the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs.

“He really was, I think, the right candidate and the right person and the right president for the times. And what happened to his presidency, ultimately I think, those same times overwhelmed his presidency” says Grant Reeher, professor of political science.

“RFK simply doesn't have jurisdiction over most of the policy levers that he would need to make America healthy again,” says Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs.