Senator Jack Reed is leading an aggressive probe into Elon Musk and SpaceX’s role in the American war industry. The investigation stems from an incident where SpaceX declined a request from the Ukrainian government to extend the range of Starlink for an attack on Russia. That incident has been widely misreported as Musk ordering SpaceX to deactivate Starlink to thwart the Ukrainian attack.
On Thursday, Senator Reed said his committee had launched an “aggressive probe” of Musk. “The committee is aggressively probing this issue from every angle,” he said. “Neither Elon Musk, nor any private citizen, can have the last word when it comes to U.S. national security.”
The investigation stems from a portion of a biography about Elon Musk written by Walter Isaacson. Initially, Isaacson reported that in September of 2022, Musk directed SpaceX to deactivate Starlink communications near the Crimean Peninsula to stop a Ukrainian attack on the Russian naval fleet that was underway.
However, Isaacson has since admitted his original account of the incident was “mischaracterized.” Musk had declined to extend Starlink’s range to Crimea after Kyiv made an emergency request. Isaacson said that the decision was consistent with previous messages SpaceX delivered to Ukraine about the range of Starlink.
Starlink is a product offered by SpaceX that allows users to connect to the internet by connecting to satellites in low orbit. The system was designed to provide internet for civilian uses. However, SpaceX does allow Kyiv to use the system to allow for communication with the Ukrainian military. After the Russian invasion of Kyiv, Musk provided Starlink to Ukraine free of charge.
Still, the media and politicians have used this incident to attack Musk. A letter issued by Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth suggests Musk deactivated Starlink at the behest of the Kremlin. “According to public reports, Mr. Isaacson claims that Mr. Musk – after “conversations with senior Russian officials… interfered with the operation of Starlink services because of his concerns about the impact of the Ukrainian military’s operational decision-making as Ukraine has been defending itself from an illegal and unprovoked Russian invasion.”
While Isaacson says Musk held conversations with Russian officials, there is no evidence from his account that SpaceX’s decision was due to the Kremlin’s urging. SpaceX’s terms of service explain that, due to US law, Starlink cannot be used to carry out military attacks. Additionally, Musk said his concern that Russia would escalate to nuclear war, not that he did not want Russian ships destroyed.
“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.”
Additionally, Musk says that he would have granted the request to extend the range of Starlink had it been made by the White House. At the time of the incident, SpaceX provided the Starlink service directly to Ukraine for free and was not under a contract with the US military. Since the September 2022 incident, the Pentagon has purchased Starlink directly from SpaceX, which allows the US government to determine what Ukraine can do with the system.
All four Senators have suggested reviewing SpaceX’s contracts with the government as a result of the incident. Reed said the committee would look at the broader satellite market, government contracting, and “the outsized role Mr. Musk and his company have taken here.”
Senators Warren, Duckworth, and Shaheen suggest SpaceX holding defense contracts pose a threat to national security. “It poses grave national security risks if DoD contractors are able to independently act to abrogate their provision of services,” the letter says. “We are deeply concerned with the ability and willingness of SpaceX to interrupt their service at Mr. Musk’s whim and for the purpose of handcuffing a sovereign country’s self-defense, effectively defending Russian interests.”
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
Since the September 2022 incident, the Pentagon has purchased Starlink directly from SpaceX, which allows the US government to determine what Ukraine can do with the system.
giving the pentagon even more power to spy on everybody
Except, for some reason they still need to pay for Israeli software to spy on us better. (Sarcasm)
Hard-core pol porn. Also suspect whoring for ADL.
Shudup Glowie
YOU shut up, sh*t-for-brains.
What’s wrong? Fedboys got you pushing too many pencils?
What’s wrong? You got a pencil-size prick?
Hell yeah bro! And it’s actually felt the warm plessure of both man & women UwU.
Now pay your taxes Israel needs another 10 billion for genocide
I ain’t anyone’s “bro”, motherf*cker.
You’re sick as hell. Go take your antipsychotic.
Agree, Robert!
SUE , Elon, SUE! Bankrupt those motherf*ckers!
Someone recently remarked that Greenblatt is both “brain dead and hideous”.
Screw war pigs like Jack Reed! I don’t like rich pigs like Elon Musk either, but I’m firmly in his corner on this one.
What is there to investigate? How about investigating your slow roll to fund FEMA?
“Neither Elon Musk, nor any private citizen, can have the last word when it comes to U.S. national security.”
Somebody should tell Senator Reed that impediments faced by the Armed forces of Ukraine are not matters of US national security.
Right. Only those that promoted failed foreign policies that promoted numerous wars and interventions at the cost of trillions of dollars and resulted in hundreds of thousands of lives being lost should have any say.
Maybe investigate the Maui fires instead. Sorry, those don’t have the potential for defense contractors to reap billions, my bad
Not to worry. Land developers, financial institutions, the 15 minute city scamsters etc will make billions. Lahaina residents especially the indigenous Hawaiians who lost everything? Not so much.
The 15 minute city concept is great. You people who oppose it are advocating continuing destruction of our planet and the killing of the life here. I get that developers and gentrifiers are using this concept to displace people, but that doesn’t make the concept a bad idea.
“that doesn’t make the concept a bad idea”
Yes it does. When have the elites ever come up with an idea that didn’t somehow screw over the working class and the working poor? Not in our lifetimes. My personal heuristic (adapted from George Carlin) is to reject any idea or directive coming from our wannabe masters. They’ve proven themselves to be lying psychopaths and trusting them at this point is delusional.
Talk about ill-informed, reactionary, knee-jerk responses to ideas relating to a subject — the design of the urban built environment — about which you obviously know noting . . .
Talk about a childish meaningless response to a comment — the environment — about which you obviously know nothing.
That’s a stunningly stupid thing to say. To suggest, even to suggest, that my comment was meaningless, or indicative of lack of environmental understanding, is incontrovertible evidence of abysmal ignorance of the reality of the biosphere and the various environments occupied by humans. You should be embarrassed.
Now, we’re finished here.
1. You can’t take it, don’t dish it out to begin with. You get what you give with me. Your comment was totally insulting and ignorant, and I responded appropriately.
2. You responded to my reply to sambor71 dissing the 15-minute city concept. That concept is that people live near work, school, and shopping, so that we don’t have to drive regularly. What don’t you understand about this? Do you deny the great harms that driving does, from extraction, refining, and burning of oil to oil spills, which BTW occur DAILY? Do you not care? What?
Maybe there’s a reading comprehension problem. If you stop now, I may not block you. It doesn’t matter to me and it may not mater to you, so whatever.
Urban environments are the opposite of nature.
Save the planet, live like the Amish.
There are eight (8) billion humans on this planet. It is entirely impossible for more than a very few of them to live like the Amish. Right now, 56% of those humans live in cities. In another 25 years, it will be 70%. It matters, a lot, for the humans and for the biosphere, how those cities function.
This isn’t fucking rocket surgery.
Rocket surgery?
I’ve yet to hear of “surgery” being done on rockets. C-section, maybe? And
There are two old cliches that are used to refer to a technically difficult task: rocket science, and brain surgery.
Rocket surgery is the conflation of those two old cliches in order to create a new cliche.
Thanks for the head’s up Brian. I was totally unfamiliar with that term.
People living “modern country” do far more environmental harm than people living in cities. If you want to live in the country without doing substantial harm, you have to live naturally: no car, no roads, no electricity, etc. I’ve thought long & hard about this, which is why I live in a city. Humans need to return to living naturally eventually, but this is a long-term goal, nothing that will happen soon.
You’ve lost your freakin’ mind.
Right. I should mention that I am in the process of the regeneration of two properties.
Those of you that advocate 15 minute cities are naive. Those aren’t about the environment. They are about downgrading and reducing humans to serfdom. “You will own nothing and be happy.”
They certainly could be about that latter thing from the viewpoint of some of their advocates.
But things can be about more than one thing.
If I ever live in a city again, I will definitely be looking for an area that answers to something like the “15-minute city” description: All basic necessities within a 15-minute walk of my home. I’ll be older, I’ll likely be living on a small (possibly fixed) income, and I already walk or bicycle on a daily basis, so why pay for constant access to a car (including maintenance, insurance, etc.) just to go get groceries or take in a movie? The money I’d save on that expense would probably be enough to cover most of an annual vacation to some place I could take a plane, train, or rented automobile to.
I don’t have a problem with the concept. The devils in the details. How exactly is the land to be acquired? Eminent domain? I’m against confiscation of property by the government. I’m against coercion, zoning manipulations and other techniques used to land grab. We have enough of that and I personally have been subjected to such So being declared as “paranoid” isn’t going to fly with me.
If someone wants to live in a 15 minute city, have at it. But not if people are forced or intimidated off their land, then no. Once government or corporations through government have this set up, it will become normalized.
I’d rather keep the government out of it entirely.
I HAVE seen “private” developers suggest, and even build, what amount to “15-minute cities” in miniature. They may have received incentives or zoning pressures to do so, but I don’t think that invalidates the concept.
There’s a housing area near me — kind of upscale and not really my cup of tea — that’s mixed stand-alone homes and townhouses apartment. The development has a little “Main Street” area, not more than a short walk from anywhere in the development, with a doctor’s office, a dentist’s office, a pharmacy and relatively small grocery store, a bakery, a pub, and two or three restaurants.
Someone who lived there COULD choose to never leave. I suspect that most of the people there, especially the ones who aren’t retired, leave on a daily basis, but they don’t have to in order to get the necessities of life (especially with various delivery services now operating). Leaving for work somewhere else is obviously a thing. Entertainment to a degree, too, although these days you can get everything from movies to live concerts on various streaming services instead of going to a club or theater. And I suspect that for those who are retired and only occasionally go “to town,” there’s both city bus service and Uber/Lyft availability.
Personally, I want to find a place to buy (we currently rent) that’s far enough out in the sticks that I can’t even see my neighbors’ homes, but close enough to “town” that if I want to just have InstaCart bring my groceries, I seldom see any need to go out.
On the other hand, if our health is not great when we retire, I could see trying instead to find a small downtown apartment or condo, preferably within a block or so of a bodega and within a short walk of a supermarket (and of various entertainment places, etc.). That would be more expensive in some ways. On the other hand, we wouldn’t have a car payment, oil changes, brake jobs, insurance, etc. to worry about. If we wanted to go outside walking distance, we’d use Uber. If we wanted to take a long trip, we’d rent a car or take a plane or train.
As it happens, my wife works “in town,” but I probably leave the house in the car with her an average of twice a week (we go to yard sales on Saturday mornings and usually have a sit-down lunch during that outing; and on average I’ll have an appointment, meeting, or whatever once a week, although it’s really in clusters). Sometimes I go a couple of weeks without going anywhere that I’m not walking to. And that’s “in the country.” And I like it!
As I said, I didn’t have problem with the concept of 15 minute cities. I don’t trust the system.
Except that doesn’t happen.
Uh, because you live in Florida, Mr. T?
I ain’t-gonna ride my bike, my horse, nor walk through a foot of snow for fifteen minutes when it’s 15 degrees outside.
No, not because I live in Florida.
The key term phrase is “if I ever live in a city again.” I don’t plan to and don’t want to, but IF.
And that desire is informed far more by more northerly cities like, say, St. Louis (where I have lived).
IF I lived in a city, I’d prefer to live in a neighborhood or development where the necessities of life were within a very close walking distance. As it happens, I’ve walked through more than a foot of snow when it was less than 15 degrees. I don’t like it much. But it was that or not get where I was going, because my vehicle certainly wasn’t going anywhere. In my particular location, it was more like a 20-minute walk to the nearest significant stores. And about that far to the train station if I wanted to get downtown (in that weather, the buses probably weren’t running, but if so there was a stop about a one-minute walk from my house).
My PREFERENCE is to mover further out in the country than I already am, to keep a well-stocked pantry so that trips out aren’t very frequently necessary, and to do my biking/walking for pleasure. That will likely entail keeping a family car, at least until the self-driving tech is so ubiquitous that I can just summon one even way out in the sticks if I want to go somewhere inconveniently distant.
Sounds like a plan, Mr. T.
I know you grew up rural and it sounds like a good fit for you.
I personally will die here on my property.
I’m pretty sure no one is proposing that you be required to live in such a place.
Noooo, except that I was born and raised here; my daughter and grandkids live here; and my husband’s entire family lives here.
I happen to enjoy four seasons and we’ve put forty year’s worth of effort into making our farm a place of beauty and a haven for wildlife. Have you ever looked out your window to see majestic great blue heron at your pond? Or deer strolling through the yard to get a drink? Mink, muskrats, and every species of bird in this area?
Why would I leave? I have a Jeep that gets me through the snow just fine. If you wanna go booga-wooga about emissions, I strongly suggest you start with the US military, which creates 25 % of the world’s carbon emissions.
“Why would I leave?”
You probably wouldn’t. You don’t have to. So why would you give a shit about the design of the urban environment?
Then don’t go outside when it snows, or don’t live where it snows. What you’re saying is that you demand your unnatural destructive lifestyle no matter what.
Yeah, it’d be peachy to live in an area with hurricanes, crocodiles, fire ants and poisonous snakes.
MY STATE has the fewest natural disasters of any in the nation. And we’ll never, ever run out of water.
Stick that in your straw and suck it.
The safest cities would be those that are not near any military base.
“Those of you that advocate 15 minute cities are naive. Those aren’t
about the environment. They are about downgrading and reducing humans
to serfdom.”
Sorry, but this is really paranoid nonsense. And few who actually live in cities oppose the 15-minute goal. After all, why in the world would they?
Hey dummy….. who do you think is going to own those cities?
What the fuck do you imagine, in your silly conspiranoid brain, that has to do with the concept under discussion? Off with you.
Hey dummy, who do you think owns the cities and everything else now? Even if you were right about a ruling class conspiracy here, the great reduction of massive environmental harms caused by everyone driving all over the place would be worth it.
Just for laughs, what are you doing about the environment? Do you advocate using solar power via resources mined from child labor? Or lithium mines creating toxic wastelands? And all the stuff you eat and the things you use every day? Produced by people that deliver, grow or produce the loot you use. You likely despise. them. Yes, they use machinery that has a carbon impact. So…. why don’t you just stop using all the things that have the carbon impact you virtue signal about? Build your 15 minute city without using things that have a carbon impact or damage the environment.
Tell you what, when you have a positive impact on the environment I’ll listen. And if it is better than mine, I’ll listen carefully. But there is little chance of that.
Life, aka the environment, is the most important issue. Industrial society is war against the Earth. Therefore, anything that can be done to get people out of cars is a good thing.
Your concerns about big gubmint or whatever are totally secondary. Land ownership is BS, a mental disease brought here from Europe by the colonizers. Your priorities are totally misplaced.
Sounds like you’re stuck in a high-rise in a concrete jungle. You’ll never know the joy of growing and preserving your own food nor the pleasure of a relationship with a horse—-humankind’s best friend.
To show how clueless and wrong you are, I’ve had horses, and I was closer with the first one than I’ve ever been with a trouble monkey, er, I mean a human. I also lived on a farm with my second horse.
My point, which maybe you didn’t get, is that humans need to rein in their egos about a million notches and stop thinking that they can just do whatever they want, the rest of the world be damned. We evolved in the tropics, and that’s where humans belong. Humans evolved in the tropical savanna in Africa, no hurricanes there! But if you insist on living outside the tropics, at least do so naturally, not industrially, as humans did for tens of thousands of years. (I’m not saying that humans can do this immediately, but we could get rid of industrial society in 150-200 years if we tried.) Saying that you will continue to destroy and kill because living naturally is inconvenient for you is really disgusting, and totally immoral to boot. And again, I’m talking about your attitude, not what changes you can or can’t make immediately or even in your lifetime.
Riiiiight. I’m destroying the environment all by my wee little self, because I (gasp) have a vehicle.
And fwy, we heat our home with wood in the winter. Burning wood results in fewer emissions than allowing wood to decompose.
Aaaaaand…what about indigenous peoples who lived in climates much colder than where I reside? Are you implying that they left enormous carbon footprints?
Because they didn’t live in the “tropics”?
Good luck with your mosquito-born diseases, pal.
Are you that dense, or do you just rationalize every harmful thing you do? There are 8 billion people on Earth, so multiply everything you do by that number. Therefore, yes, by owning & driving a motor vehicle, you substantially contribute to harming the planet and the life here.
Anyone who supports industrial society should have to eat coal and drink oil. Then you’d know how the Earth and all the life on it feels from what you do to them.
Omg Mr. Jeff, I apologize PROFUSELY for not being as perfect as you.
Now, f*ck off.
To show how clueless and wrong you are, I’ve had horses, and I was closer with the first one than I’ve ever been with a trouble monkey, er, I mean a human. I also lived on a farm with my second horse.
My point, which maybe you didn’t get, is that humans need to rein in their egos about a million notches and stop thinking that they can just do whatever they want, the rest of the world be damned. We evolved in the tropics, and that’s where humans belong. Humans evolved in the tropical savanna in Africa, no hurricanes there! But if you insist on living outside the tropics, at least do so naturally, not industrially, as humans did for tens of thousands of years. (I’m not saying that humans can do this immediately, but we could get rid of industrial society in 150-200 years if we tried.) Saying that you will continue to destroy and kill because living naturally is inconvenient for you is really disgusting, and totally immoral to boot. And again, I’m talking about your attitude, not what changes you can or can’t make immediately or even in your lifetime.
Love being a landowner, Jeff. Love having a piece of property that I can manage. We were out picking apples and grapes on Sunday. Still more apples to be picked as the honeycrisp and haralsons ripen. The drought really played havoc with the food plot so the crabapple trees will be the focus when I start deer hunting as the temps drop. Plan on buying a UTV in the spring so I can do more work on restoring the meadow to native prairie grasses and forbs.
The MI Complex’s minions in action. Running dogs for profit & power.
Btw, is there any doubt at all that the D’s are the more warlike party at this point?
It seems odd to me, to find so much fighting going on here, at ANTIWAR.COM.
Well, that’s in part because a number of fools here are sympathetic toward the US Government, author and enforcer the rules-based planet, otherwise known as the “Or Else” government.
The war pigs always release few of their acolytes, to keep the chaos going. You’d think, they would spend their drivel on RT instead of this website.
Amen
Donna, it keeps the debate going, only Julio is left to vote you down. Some did take a peak and lasted but a few days to never be seen again.
Fine, Musk can cancel the Starlink contract and dismantle the system. The DoD can find some other contractor, I’m sure.
Could there be some Patent issues involved?
What about the United States government is not aggressive?
As if SpaceX is the ONLY contractor for Pentagon? And the only one providing “services” on behalf if Pentagon? As if we neverbheard of Bezos providing analitical services to good chink of CIA! Si, if I am an employee of privatey contracted services, who does my performance appraisal? And if private sector manager controls my job, all the analysus I provide will be tailored to please tge unspoken wishes of the contractor that controls my livelihood.
Who are these senators kidding. There is no aspect of Federal government that has not been privatized. We have a corporate run state, which is infinitely more dangerous than state run corporations we so abhore in China and other “autoritarian” regimes. We despise an authority, a grave danger to private interests litterally runing the government. Political parties themselves are private corporations, with investors running auditikns called the primaries to select the most popular actor capable of winning public support and once elected, capable of executing party line, while putting on appropriate act for their constituents.
Focusing on Musk is just a convenient thestre, Hisvego made him an easy target. By getting at him to set an example of virtuous government doing its nob controlunb private sector decisions.
Musk can be an updated vsrsion of Leona Helmsley, a loudmouth hotel owner engaged in some market/taxes manipulation. She was an easy target -/ and a convenient one, At the time, big swindles in Wall Street were muffled while Helmsley wax on fromt pages,
Same old,
Not really sure what he thinks Starling did wrong here? Any contract that existed surely was between Star link and Ukraine none of the USA’s business. Or did the US government pay star link to provide services to Ukraine at which point yes they can complain
Anyone else asking questions like why Ukraine needs Elon Musk’s satellites to target Russia? We don’t spend enough money on our war capabilities to give Ukraine the exact coordinates? Do we need Elon Musk to start a nuclear war against Russia? What if he’s on vacation or at a Senate hearing investigating his disgusting “anti-nuclear war” tendencies? We go without nuclear Armageddon? …Before you start answering my dumb questions with more dumb questions–Don’t! I ask the dumb questions around here! (Sarcasm)
It’s not a dumb question and I’m going to answer it.
Ukraine probably wasn’t using Starlink for “targeting.” They were more likely using it for immediate communications.
Not clear why we need Elon’s satellites for immediate communication either? Don’t forget, I’m not smart enough to understand. (Sarcasm)
If Starlink is able to provide targeting, that is what the Ukrainians wanted, they are not idiots and ask for less.
As I understand it, they already had the use communication but NOT targeting.
The political, corporate US establishment, the owners of the nations wealth, have very methodically eliminated all left of center social, democratic parties in the whole USA/NATO membership. There are no progressive left of center voices left in MSM and governments. Germany has the AfD, conservative right of center, the party is growing and about to bypass the old parties including the CDU and SPD, the party has a chance to become the strongest party and provide next PM. And methodically the old parties are defaming the party as they did in the US in the McCarthy era to socialists and communists and the unions. They even did it in Sweden and Finland.
Just a suggestion to use diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine was recalled within a few hours. RJK Jr. will be knee-capped to eliminate him on MSM where he could open up a real debate.
Aggressive probes are what our pederast DC denizens specialize in.
Anyone for free speech or going against the Deep State is ripe for being marginalized. That’s why they went after Trump; he actually thought the President had the authority to make policy.