I found the article a bit confusing. Seems like there are several distinct categories here:

• U.S. Citizens
• U.S. Permanent Residents
• Non-citizen, non-permanent-residents who are present in the United States and authorized to work
• Non-citizen, non-permanent-residents who are not present in the United States

From the article, it sounds like SpaceX is discriminating against that third category, but a lot of the discussion in the article is about whether it’s legal to discriminate against non-Citizens, which would include the second category. And it sounds like DOJ’s position is that export control laws only apply to the line between the third and fourth category. But the article jumbles it all together as if we’re just talking about one line, when we’re really talking about at least three distinct lines.