CNN reports that Elon Musk personally instructed SpaceX employees to disable Starlink to prevent a Ukrainian attack on the Russian naval fleet in Crimea last year. SpaceX has spent millions of dollars of the company’s own money to help Kyiv’s military stay connected on the battlefield since the Russian invasion last year. However, the company draws a red line in participating in attacks with its technology.
CNN got the story from an advanced copy of Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography of Musk. In Isaacson’s interpretation of the incident, Kyiv made an “emergency request” to SpaceX for Starlink to expand the reach of communications to Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. The clear implication was that Ukraine intended to launch an attack on the Russian naval fleet.
Isaacson says after Starlink denied Kyiv’s request, an explosive submarine “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.” Isaacson notes that Musk was contacted by top officials in Washington after the incident, but CNN did not report the nature of those discussions.
On Thursday, Musk gave his account of the potential Ukrainian attack. “There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” he wrote on X. “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
According to SpaceX’s terms of service, the decision not to authorize Ukraine’s emergency request is company policy and US law. “Starlink is not designed or intended for use with or in offensive or defensive weaponry or other comparable end-uses. Custom modifications of the Starlink Kits or Services for military end-uses or military end-users may transform the items into products controlled under U.S. export control laws, specifically the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or the Export Administration Regulations requiring authorizations from the United States government for the export, support, or use outside the United States. Starlink aftersales support to customers is limited exclusively to standard commercial service support. At its sole discretion, Starlink may refuse to provide technical support to any modified Starlink products and is grounds for termination of this Agreement.”
Musk has faced intense scrutiny for the event. Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, attacked the SpaceX founder on X. “Sometimes a mistake is much more than just a mistake. By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via Starlink interference, [Musk] allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, children are being killed. This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego,” he wrote, “However, the question still remains: why 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?”
The ire for Musk was compounded by journalists suggesting SpaceX had prevented the Ukrainian attack by turning off or deactivating Starlink. The Daily Beast reported, “Musk switched off his Starlink satellite communications network last year in order to prevent a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships.”
CNN also noted that Musk laments having his technology involved in the war. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes,” Musk reportedly said to Isaacson.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
“The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,”
Like most of the Russian Black Sea fleet is at anchor during war time…
As usual, this is Musk BS’ing the world as a PR gimmick.
Do you know that most of the fleet is/was not at anchor? Because most ships of any fleet are constantly at their bases getting fueled, retrofitted, armed, rested, etc..
If the first words in the story are ‘CNN reports’ my BS meter immediately goes up to 100
That’s good of him. But, you know, Alfred Nobel invented TNT to make mining easier and safer (which is did). He didn’t know its main use was going to be military and was very unhappy about that. That’s what happens all the time: human ingenuity creates products to make life easier, from fire and the wheel to today, and it’s immediately perverted to war uses because we just can’t seem to stop. Get a load of this bastard Podolyak, for example, complaining because not everyone is tossing away all their morals for the victory of his side of this war.
Agreed; with the difference that Musk still controls his technology so gets to decide how it’s used. If Nobel controlled all access to dynamite, he’d have been able to prevent its use in war too.
Which is one very good example of what’s wrong with technology to begin with. Humans should have remained living as hunter gatherers and focused on expanding our consciousness, instead of all this harmful technology.
And BTW, just because technology isn’t being used to directly kill humans doesn’t at all mean it’s not harmful. In your example citing Alfred Nobel, you seem to think that mining is OK. Well, consider how anyone but humans on this planet feels about it. Very destructive, fatal, and toxic, an unnatural activity that totally fails to consider anything but humans.
Thankfully only a few lunatics like you think we should go back to the stone age.
Good for Musk. He is not a Ukrainian citizen and his country is not at war with Russia; for a party to use his company assets to conduct a military strike against a foreign country would make him an accessory. Common Sense wins out.
Smart business man does what is good for business. Nothing unusual about that.
If it is true and it wasn’t Russians who disabled his satellites.
I think Musk is walking a tightrope. Starlink went a long way to protect his investments in China.
I don’t think Russians disabled his satellites because if they had that kind of capability, they would probably permanently disable his other satellites in Ukraine.
Elon didn’t prevent the Ukraine from doing anything; he just decided not to assist them to attack Russia. He’s giving the Ukraine his satellite internet services for free, already. He can’t afford to fight their war with them.
Keep in mind that his network is being used to attack Russia. It may be more valuable to the AFU than all of the other “game changer” weapons the west has provided.
That’s the point. Elon doesn’t want his StarLink used as a weapon and neither do any sane people. He provided them with a free service; he did not agree to give them military equipment. For Zelenskiy, it’s never enough.
I’ve read he was well paid for Starlink??
Every account I’ve seen says he initially provided it for free, then eventually got the Pentagon to partially reimburse him.
Thereby acknowledging an intended military end-use, no??
There are a lot of different claims floating around, but the prevailing one seems to be this one:
He provided Starlink to Ukraine, for use in defending Ukraine.
Crimea no longer being part of Ukraine, he did not provide coverage of Crimea.
The Ukrainian regime planned an operation in Crimea, and asked him to turn on coverage in Crimea so that they could use Starlink in some way related to that attack.
And he said “no.”
I have not read the biography that this whole controversy arose from, nor do I have any way of knowing whether whatever that biography says is accurate.
Let’s not forget that Russia & China can destroy orbiting satellites and have demonstrated this ability, so Russia could most likely take out many star link assets before Starling even came up with a plan to protect their assets at a big cost. Better business to be neutral…!!!
No, he has not received any payments. At one point he suggested Ukraine or their sponsor, the US, to pay but he got a lot of blow-back from supporters of Ukraine and the war so he has been paying out of his own, personal account. I’d like to see that link you read so I can correct myself if necessary.
I’ll try, but it was a while back.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/pentagon-buys-starlink-ukraine-statement-2023-06-01/
Thank you.
That contract was never finalized; as Musk wouldn’t agree to some fairly sketchy requirements. Ukraine now has limited access; and reduced levels data. Basically enough for communications and not enough to operate weapons systems.
Same deal as Twitter; but the government can’t publically reveal that. The government installed CEO’s have gotten wise to the fact that they have the government over a barrel; and can just sell these companies off and pocket the profits.
The U.S. government had over $50B invested in creating and building Twitter over the years; and so they think they can tell Musk what to do. Let them hold a public press conference; detailing all of that info to the public; then make the argument. They sold Twitter to Musk; fair and square; without revealing their claims on the company. He has no obligations.
And isn’t Crimea fully equiped to prevent any incoming, anyway? …Musk’s ‘scruples’ were superfluous??
There have been several reported Ukrainian strikes on Ukraine, with differing levels of claimed success or failure.
Ukraine’s record on reporting failures is a perfect zero %…
I can see how Starlink might be used to coordinate an attack on Crimea if troops succeeded in landing there. (They made a failed attempt on Saturday.)
I saw the link to Reuters you posted. Perhaps Ukraine is trying to get the Pentagon to extend coverage into Crimea.
The Pentagon doesn’t decide where Starlink works. Elon Musk does.
If the Pentagon wants to include Crimea in the contract, they are free to ask.
This is just common sense. He would hate having a guilty conscious for helping to start WW3.
According to SpaceX’s terms of service, the decision not to authorize Ukraine’s emergency request is company policy and US law. “Starlink is not designed or intended for use with or in offensive or defensive weaponry or other comparable end-uses.
i gotta wonder why uncle sam, who no doubt holds the utmost upper ground in space technology, does not simply eliminate every space device in the night sky that is not affiliated with uncle sam. is Elon Musk able to deny uncle sam? i doubt it.
is China able to deny uncle sam? i doubt it. so how many other earthlings can dare to play the Buzz Lightyear outer-space-man game? certainly not the far-eastern europeans.
edit = just wait until the Brazilians launch their terrifying space action league into space and start menacing the legacy of freakin’ Buzz Aldrin = “fuck off son, how dare you question the questionable physics of an actual moon landing!”
OMG at some point someone has to stand up and remind the rest of the world that some things are way beyond the laws of physics as we know them to be today.
“i gotta wonder why uncle sam, who no doubt holds the utmost upper ground in space technology, does not simply eliminate every space device in the night sky that is not affiliated with uncle sam.”
For the same reason that Russia doesn’t attack US satellites — other countries have the ability to retaliate.
Niger’s Military Junta Is Supported by the Pentagon. Washington’s Unspoken Objective is to remove France from Africa. Frances only real option is to unite with Russia and defend its homeland.
You may be right. I think Europe’s only real option is to unite with Russia.
The USA is Europe’s real enemy, the end of NATO will be a blessing. Biden is almost there.
Both Zelensky and the ADL are after Musk? Not enough brain synapses left for me to understand. Does that mean he’s good or bad? (Sarcasm)
“SpaceX has spent millions of dollars of the company’s own money to help Kiev’s military stay connected on the battlefield…” Musk is such a nice guy. …No? Zelensky says he’s not nice enough!? He says Musk is killing “civilians, children?” That’s terrible. Didn’t Musk know Zelensky is the only one allowed to kill “civilians, children?” …I’m ignorant? …LOL. …You already knew I was ignorant so why do you read my posts? (Obvious Sarcasm)
Because we like sarcasm.
It’s the best! 😁
Good for Musk… He should cut off ALL Starlink access to Ukraine.
It would have been wiser for Starlink to keep out of the entire conflict from the get-go. But because Musk has allowed Ukraine to use Starlink already, now he has one foot in what he calls “defensive use” and he’s trying to keep the other foot out of what he calls “offensive use”. Still, Zelensky can’t complain too much or else Musk might just pull out altogether. But then, Musk wouldn’t get the profits…
Poor Elon. What to do, what to do?
Is he making any profits? As of last October, he claimed to be providing the service free at a cost of tens of millions of dollars per month, and to want either Ukraine or the Pentagon to start paying at least some of the costs. Unless something’s changed since then, the only “profit” he’s been getting out of it is any positive reputational effects among Ukraine supporters.
War can be profitable either way for the high income elite.
As far as I know, he is being paid through various “back doors”.
Surprisingly, M cannot afford to provide free lunches to anyone at the moment.
Most government officials would respond with “no comment.” If Musk’s claim is true, you don’t want to admit that Starlink doesn’t work in Crimea. If it is not true, you still don’t want to admit that it does work in Crimea.
But not Ukraine. Zelensky wants Ukraine to be “big Israel” but after this, the botched counteroffensive, and sundry other blunders, I think “retarded Israel” is a much more apt moniker.
Kiev should quit crying- the Ukraine is lucky to even exist as a nation at this point, courtesy of Western welfare. Maybe if those Ukrainian wunderkinder who build drones and modify missiles and build home-grown tanks could figure out how to have a reliable communication system they wouldn’t have to rely on one man’s generosity.
The USA is the real enemy of Kiev, they started all this blunder. Ukraine could have been a neutral, prospering nation if it had not been for the neocons in the state department.
As it is, Ukraine is being annihilated, thanks to the criminal Biden team.
It wasn’t just Biden. Obama had a lot to do with causing the current war.
Trump could have acted to make this war less likely but didn’t. The Democrats would likely have impeached him for doing so but he should have done it anyway
I wonder, I think that Trump alone could not oppose the neocons completely, that is why the demented Biden was picked to replace Trump, he is one of them.
Since Kennedy we have not had a cohesive government policy.
We have government based on never ending campaign bumper sticker talk, propaganda.
40,000 men and women everyday
another 4o,000 coming every day
la la la la laa
quit being a dick, because this is the song of this war =
oh maybe that sh*t is too gentle here is another more appropriate war song =
“Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah”
——
someday i will find you and i will get you ….
… .. spy on this …
According to many, the Ukrainians use signals from the US MQ-9 “Reaper” to attack Crimea. It’s interesting the “Reaper” is already in your song? But, I don’t think 40,000 per day is enough for Zelensky. You got to work harder than that. He needs WWIII. (Sarcasm)
hey don’t forget that i said that i will find you and i will get you
It takes an outsider for common sense to prevail because there is no common sense to be found in the present government on both sides of the aisle. In this case, Kudos to Musk.
Can someone please yell at him for being a free speech non-censorship advocate, who has shut off access to read posts without an account?
Full disclosure, I’m not a fan of Musk’s. He’s a narcissistic megalomaniac like other billionaires. But if I had a dime for every time someone belched out that twitter was a private company and that they could censor or ban at will before Musk, I’d be a billionaire too. Now suddenly, since his private tech, owned by a private company, decided not to activate service in the pursuit of war, this is beyond the pale and an obligation?
Phucking hypocrites.
Hypocrisy is the language of the Neocons / MIC in service to their violent, vengeful desert god.
Based on the little I’ve read that sounds credible, Musk never opened the doors to Crimea, based on his interpretation of the law at that time, and based on the fact that he likely views Crimea as Russian territory.
Zelenski and company are bald faced liars and putrid excuses as human detritus. I believe nothing Kiev belches out and nothing I read from the western press – nothing. The prostitution of the press/media during Bush II’s attack on Baghdad cured me of any illusions about the Press Whores.
In 3 months NATO has lost 66 thousand servicemen (casualties) and 7,600 pieces of equipment. Another week for NATO in Ukraine 2nd-9th September……
In the Zaporozhye direction, the Russian Group of Forces repelled NATO forces near Rabotino and Verbovoye. NATO forces lost 845 troops, 27 tanks and armored fighting vehicles and 25 other vehicles. At least 63 Ukraine field artillery guns were also destroyed in counter-battery fire.
In the Kupyansk direction, the Russian Zapad Group of Forces repelled four NATO attacks. NATO forces lost 425 troops, eight armored fighting vehicles, 18 cars and pickup trucks and 15 artillery pieces.
In the Krasny Liman direction, the Russian Tsentr Group of Forces repelled NATO forces close to Chervonaya Dibrova. NATO forces lost 450 servicemen, 13 armored fighting vehicles, 15 motor vehicles and seven guns.
In the Donetsk direction, NATO forces lost 2,100 NATO troops, 23 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 45 vehicles and 30 field artillery pieces.
In the South Donetsk direction, NATO forces lost 1,230 troops, 24 armored fighting vehicles, 37 motor vehicles and 17 field artillery guns.
In the Kherson direction, NATO forces lost 355 Ukrainian troops, one tank, 32 vehicles and 12 field artillery guns.
++++ Bravo.
Blinken visited Zelensky in desperation. NATO is attempting to freeze the war to allow NATO to rearm and rebuild. Essentially a Minsk3.
Keep in mind that NATO needed the so called “Counter Offensive” to break up the Russian war of attrition which NATO had no response to. The so called “Counter Offensive” was a last ditch effort to shape the European battlefield in favour of NATO.
As Russia will not allow NATO to rearm and rebuild i expect the next escalation for NATO is to send Polish troops into the fight by attempting a so called “Peace Keeping” operation in West Ukraine.
In 2014 US/NATO and the EU declared war on Russia. Russia is simply doing a very good job of defending the homeland from these parasites.
Ukraine the de facto proxy NATO MEMBER is really destroying on orders of the neocon outfit in DC NATO and EU, leaving Russia no choice but to annihilate Ukraine.
Does the DNC really believe that Biden and his neocon idiotic State Department scum is electable? What kind of idiots are they?
That outfit declared war on Germany when they blew up the pipeline and are now provoking China too.
In 2022 the USA declared war on NATO.
I understand your point. But I wish you would say that Ukraine lost all of this, particularly when you’re talking about the soldiers KIA.
Dying and destruction is Ukraine’s business …. and business is good.
NATO has already lost; 467 Aircraft, 248 helicopters, 6582 UAV’s, 436 Anti Aircraft systems, 11773 tanks inc. APC’s, 1149 multiple rocket launchers, 6319 field artillery and 12883 military automotive equipment. Approx. $1 Trillion of NATO hardware.
hey this website is called “AntiWar” but every single post and every single comment regarding every single post is all about war. there is something wrong with every single one of us, especially me. how about if we all try to change the subject just for once!
i will start with these freakin stupid hippies from Germany in 1971 =
how about the rest of yall sumbitches, are yalls really Anti-War ?
https://media2.giphy.com/media/YvX3ZZ5yfXdChkuRne/giphy-downsized-small.mp4
Musk is as private American citizen; owning and operating a private American corporation. He has absolutely NO obligation to any foreign country; much less the U.S. government. If they want to offer him a military contract (he should accept no less than one trillion dollars) have at at it. He can chose to accept; OR decline.
Will no one rid me of this meddlesome zelensky?
Curtailing aid to Ukraine will only prolong the war, Mr Zelensky argues. And it would create risks for the West in its own backyard. There is no way of predicting how the millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries would react to their country being abandoned. Ukrainians have generally “behaved well” and are “very grateful” to those who sheltered them. They will not forget that generosity. But it would not be a “good story” for Europe if it were to “drive these people into a corner”.
The Nazi’s in Ukraine are now threatening Europe, gee i never saw that coming. He literally sounds like a mafia boss.
The path to ending this war is regime change. And the weak regimes are all in the West.