Elon Musk no longer wants to cover the costs of the work of the Starlink satellite system, thanks to which Ukraine has Internet connectivity. However, he is lying when he claims he has paid for everything himself so far.
From hero to zero – this is how you can briefly describe the involvement of the famous American billionaire in the war that has been going on since February. When, immediately after his outbreak, he announced that he would supply the Ukrainians with the Starlink satellite communication system, he was celebrated in kyiv almost on a par with the heroes of the battle at the front. Thanks to its rapid intervention, Ukraine maintained its connection to the global network, increasing its chances of surviving the first wave of Russian strikes.
Musk. From hero to…
The quickly gained glory was clearly not enough for him, because he recently began to engage in warfare again – with controversial statements. First, he organized a Twitter poll with his ideas for ending the conflict in Ukraine. He proposed, among other things, a referendum under the auspices of the United Nations on the territories illegally annexed by Russia. He also wrote that Crimea “historically belongs to Russia”, proving that it disregards Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial inviolability. And although netizens explicitly rejected his idea, the disgust remained.
Ukrainian politicians, first of all, were upset by Musk’s remarks. kyiv’s ambassador to Germany, Andrej Melnyk, commented on them undiplomatically on Twitter – he literally told him to argue… And Musk added fuel to the fire on Friday. It has indicated that it no longer intends to cover the operating costs of the Starlink system. According to his estimates, he has so far spent $80 billion for this purpose, and by the end of the year the bill will rise to $100 million. As he clarified, he is not in a position to maintain this system indefinitely nor to provide free equipment, in particular thousands of terminals with a bandwidth up to a hundred times greater than that of an average household.
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Who will foot Ukraine’s bill
Musk wants the costs paid by the US federal government. Especially since the war is not going to end anytime soon. Even if that were the case, it will take even longer before the Ukrainians rebuild their transport infrastructure. According to CNN, Musk’s lawyers sent a letter to the Department of Defense on September 8, warning that the billionaire would soon stop paying for Starlink. The Pentagon didn’t seem to react, at least not in the way Musk would have expected. According to information provided to the Washington Post by an unnamed defense official, the clash took place on Thursday evening. Musk, who has ties to the White House and top US politicians, confirmed he would turn off the money tap.
The billionaire is trying to build a narrative that he wanted to help, but only for a while and to a limited extent, and now the whole world expects him to keep Ukraine connected to the internet alone. According to sources, The Washington Post complained about having to offer an increasingly wide range of services – including cybersecurity tasks, as the Russians were doing everything to disable or at least weaken Starlink. In fact, reports of the increasingly weak and dying internet connection recently came from Ukraine. Olga Tokariuk, correspondent for “Monocle” magazine in Kyiv, warned on Tuesday that something was wrong with Starlinek. It’s unclear, of course, whether these were Russian attacks or Elon Musk’s deliberate slowing down of the system, but its merits at the start of the war have been largely overlooked.
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The Pentagon is furious
Musk is using Ukraine as a human shield in his own game with the US government. What exactly is he talking about – nobody knows, but there are so many dots that you can try to connect them. The Pentagon is furious because it feels blackmailed. As the Washington Post whistleblower describes, the billionaire threw a bill on the Army table for a system that no one asked for and that everyone desperately needs. It was true, Musk entered the ranks in February, and now he’s charging for his heroism.
Second, the owner of Tesla is simply lying, claiming that so far he has paid for everything Starlink himself. According to April information from the staff of The Technology 202, the column of the Washington Post dealing with new technologies, this is not true. The federal aid agency USAID played a big role in handing over the terminals to the Ukrainians, who bought about 1,500 of these devices from SpaceX for around $1,500. for art. Plus, she added 800 thousand. hole. for transport. That’s about $3 million in total, which needs to be added to Musk’s account. So the question is: what are these fabrications for?
The web is full of absurd assumptions. Closest to the truth is the one that assumes Musk wants to build himself the tools to exert effective pressure on the Biden administration. After all, he plans to take over Twitter, which many in Washington would like to regulate in various ways, while Musk would rather free the platform from rules and restrictions. Added to this are personnel issues and the fact that Tesla’s founder is simply an unmanaged narcissist who has been considered more influential than US presidents for years. In his view, the era of nation states and the concentration of power in public institutions is over forever – and one could still agree with this claim of poverty.
Has the center of decision-making really passed into the hands of Musk and similar billionaire celebrities? If so, that doesn’t bode well. Because Elon Musk likes a lot of things. Most of himself. Minus – stability and predictability.
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