[pixl97]

You may end up in case of "You can avoid the rap, but you cannot avoid the ride". And the avoidance would cost a lot.

Of course you might get a national security letter silencing you from even talking to the judges, getting put in a nice trap if you try to garner support to defend yourself on what you did you could run into further issues.

[ethbr1]

The party across the table is the US Dept of State, and all its friends. A reasonable person probably doesn't want to be on the other side of that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arm...

SpaceX would only be willing to make that jump if it were fine never getting a contract from the US government again, which means the US economy and/or state imploded.