Elon Musk says he refused to give Kyiv access to his Starlink communications network over Crimea to avoid complicity in a âmajor act of warâ.
Kyiv had sent an emergency request to activate Starlink to Sevastopol, home to a major Russian navy port, he said.
His comments came after a book alleged he had switched off Starlink to thwart a drone attack on Russian ships.
A senior Ukrainian official says this enabled Russian attacks and accused him of âcommitting evilâ.
Russian naval vessels had since taken part in deadly attacks on civilians, he said.
âBy not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities,â he said.
âWhy do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?â he added.
The row follows the release of a biography of the billionaire by Walter Isaacson which alleges that Mr Musk switched off Ukraineâs access to Starlink because he feared that an ambush of Russiaâs naval fleet in Crimea could provoke a nuclear response from the Kremlin.
Ukraine targeted Russian ships in Sevastopol with submarine drones carrying explosives but they lost connection to Starlink and âwashed ashore harmlesslyâ, Mr Isaacson wrote.
Starlink terminals connect to SpaceX satellites in orbit and have been crucial for maintaining internet connectivity and communication in Ukraine as the conflict has disrupted the country infrastructure.
I say itâs ukraineâs fault to try and rely on a PRIVATE infrastructure for mission critical connectivity. That enabled Elon to in turn disconnect the service whenever he wanted. Maybe not rely on a private infrastructure where itâs owner has absolute control over the communication.
Their existing infrastructure was destroyed by an invading nation. What do you expect them to do, put down fiber lines in the middle of a warzone?
I wouldnât say itâs their fault, but it is on them (and possibly all the supporters) this was allowed to happen.
We can point fingers all we want, but the fact remains that Ukraine military relies on some private company ran by an ass, and now they suffer the consequence. This is also not even the first time this ass was giving them hard time.
By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet
I think this quote is where we all need to take a step back. People are essentially blaming him for not empowering one warring partyâs ability to attack another.
It doesnât matter which side you are on. He doesnt immediately become responsible for everything that the russians do with the soldiers and equipment that werenât killed/destroyed in the attack.
This is also assuming the drone attack would have been successful.
I wouldnât call it interference it was just refusal to play.
The type of attitude used here is a very childish âyou are with me or you are against meâ take that everyone publicly recognizes as wrong.
I would def prefer a ukrainian victory, but you guys treat musk like he is some sort of chaos god and all knowing entity or something.
People are essentially blaming him for not empowering one warring partyâs ability to attack another.
No. We are blaming him for preventing Ukraine to defend itself. If you punch me and I punch you to get you off me then thatâs not me attacking you, itâs still you attacking me.
Worse, somebody just punched me and Iâm about to punch back, and while I do that you swipe my leg so I lose my footing, saying âbut you canât attack them!â, causing me to land unluckily and break my wrist. That is what Musk did: He put Ukrainian forces and assets in direct danger over pulling a service he agreed to provide. Noone would blame him had he stayed out of things in the first place, or given notice that heâs backing out, or something like that. Weâd be calling him a pussy, but thatâd be it. But committing and then retracting support at a critical moment? Thatâs treason.
Just because you call it treason doesnt make it treason.
Just as you pointed out, replace defend itself with attack Russia.
Hows it sound then?
Also as was pointed out it was never activated so its not like he deactivated it. Your analogy doesnt stand.
Just as you pointed out, replace defend itself with attack Russia.
Hows it sound then?
This doesnât work because we all know Russia is the aggressor. It still sounds bad for Elon
It was already activated, Musk ordered it shut off during an Ukrainian operation meant to take out those ships. The same ships that have been launching missiles and hitting civilian targets.
Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his companyâs Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacsonâs new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled âElon Musk.â
As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they âlost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,â Isaacson writes.
Source:
I agree with your statement, the fact that Musk can just make decisions like that is an issue. Regardless of whether or not he owns the majority of the company he agreed to provide this service. That means he should have to give ample notice before disabling the service.
Yeah, I honestly donât understand why this narrative even needs to be played out.
I donât know what angle there is by making Musk a scapegoat beyond, maybe, Ukraine trying to strengthen its supporting relationship with the US population, but it already has most of the US support anyway.
Musk has his issues, thereâs no doubt about that, but not wanting to be involved is an ethical stance to take on his part.
My question is, if he was actually worried about being complicit with the war or whatever, why did he provide starlink at all? It was obvious what it was going to be used for. He get cold feet because Ukraine is doing way better then expected?
No. Russia is 100% in the wrong, continously committing crimes against humanity for no justifiable reason at all.
⊠that, in the pursuit of taking away Ukrainian freedom and independence.
Hence, to actively disrupt their defense is deeply unethical. He chose to do something rather than nothing, and it directly helps those wishing to make the world a worse place. Disgraceful.
You mean he chose to do nothing rather than something. The starlink access was never turned ON
By musks account. By Walter Isaacsonâs account the opposite was the case. Considering musks opposition to aiding the victim, it would be on brand.
Whatâs even more mind boggling is that despite Starlink being so critical to Ukrainian communications, neither the Ukrainian government nor the US entered into a contract with a clause obligating Starlink to maintain service. Musk can just legally turn off Starlink for them with no legal repercussions because they never negotiated something against that into a contract with him. Even if they had to pay a premium rate for Starlink, for a service that critical to the Ukrainian Armed Forces itâs worth it
This is the same bullshit take propagandists and Musk himself are spreading.
Musk sabotaged an active military operation in an effort to save Russian assets and materials, by disabling access to Starlink in that area, to halt the operation. And then refused to undo what he did.
All to protect Russian assets in an illegal undeclared war of annexation where Russia is the aggressor.
Musks actions enabled the death of thousands of civilians in Ukraine and likely will cause far more through his actions which extend how long this illegal invasion will continue.
Musk should be stripped of his US citizenship and booted right back to South Africa. America stands by Ukraine, South Africa tries to pretend they are neutral but the agreements they have with Russia and the opinions of rich fuck South Africans like Musk make it clear they stand with Russia.
And anyone who keeps spreading these press releases with his propagandist take on the subject rather than saying how things actually happened, should be ashamed of themselves and monitored until all this is over.
He should be charged with treason or something similar for doing this during wartime to a US ally. Enough of this narcissistic POS.
LolâŠhe switched it off as a personal favor to Putin.
Doubt it. The smart money says that he did it because he does a ton of business with the Chinese and is very nervous about being seen to actively take sides in a way that would cause them to see him as a potential security threat.
You would have a point were I simply speculating, but Iâm not.
I am simply stating what the most well-informed and knowledgeable sources are saying.
You would know this if you had sanitized and healthy media consumption habits, but you obviously donât.
Nationalize Starlink and SpaceX
Nope, it comes from Old French which used the same âsâ as Latin whereas the âzâ is greek. The French standardised to the âsâ in the late 1600 which informed the English which had bounced between the Greek and Latin but formalised on âiseâ not âizeâ.
So, nationalise is the correct one here.
People learn words in different fashions. In Jeopardy (an American quiz show) they accept written answers in the last round that are spelled incorrectly as long as itâs clear, phonetically, what they were trying for.
This is done in part because some people learn words by hearing them and not seeing them written, just like some people might have read a word but not know how to pronounce it.
Did you comment this to be superior or be helpful because it comes across as superior.
To add the same low level of information and discourse that all of these click bait, musk hate posts of late contribute to ânewsâ and âtechnologyâ.
Did you comment to feel superior or were you feeling left out?
We already had a nationalized SpaceX. We defunded it and gave grants to private companies like uh⊠SpaceX.
While I agree that NASA shouldnât have had any funding cut, supporting a privatized space industry isnât a bad thing on its own.
But giving Elon Musk a defense contract was a fucking stupid idea.
