Elon Musk says he refused to give Kyiv access to his Starlink communications network over Crimea to avoid complicity in a “major act of war”.

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 “committing evil”.

Russian naval vessels had since taken part in deadly attacks on civilians, he said.

“By 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,” he said.

“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?” he added.

The row follows the release of a biography of the billionaire by Walter Isaacson which alleges that Mr Musk switched off Ukraine’s access to Starlink because he feared that an ambush of Russia’s 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 “washed ashore harmlessly”, 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.

SpaceX, in which Mr Musk is the largest shareholder, began providing thousands of Starlink satellite dishes to Ukraine shortly after Russia launched its full-scale assault on its neighbour in February last year.

Responding to the book’s claim, Mr Musk said on X that SpaceX “did not deactivate anything” because it had not been activated in those regions in the first place.

“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 said.

“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, eight years before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine

In the past, Mr Musk has said that while the system had “become the connectivity backbone of Ukraine all the way up to the front lines”, “we are not allowing Starlink to be used for long-range drone strikes”.

Mr Musk reiterated the point to Mr Isaacson, asking: “How am I in this 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.”

He also offered a personal opinion, calling for a truce and saying that Ukrainians and Russians were dying “to gain and lose small pieces of land” and this was not worth their lives.

He provoked anger last year when he proposed a plan to end the war which suggested the world formally recognise Crimea as part of Russia and asking residents of regions seized by Russia last year to vote on which country they wanted to be part of.

Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov said that plan displayed “moral idiocy”

  • freagle
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    10 months ago

    You want to source your evidence for the US security establishment currently freaking out? Consider that it was the former head of the CIA’s investment arm that got SpaceX the funding it needed, potentially from that fund but we can’t know. Consider that the vast majority of SpaceX payloads are military intelligence payloads. Consider that SpaceX has hired multiple former US officials to high positions within the company.

    Consider that none of his lucrative relationships are with Biden or Biden appointees but with generals and other military officials that do not change with the administration. Consider that the Starlink project underwent research and development in conjunction not with the Trump administration but with the Air Force directly. Consiser that Obama refused to give weapons to Ukraine and it was, in fact, the Trump administration that was the first US administration ever to provide them with weapons.

    Whatever silly little narrative about red vs blue you think is happening here, it’s delusion. Whatever belief you have about the sanctity of the private company and it’s complete separation from the intelligence community, it’s fantasy. The military intelligence apparatus regularly puts its agents into jobs in corporate America, particular in positions with influence and access to information.

    No one is sending spy satellites into orbit with direct and constant military intelligence oversight. From the investment through design, planning, and operations, intelligence is all over Musk’s work day in and day out.

    The people who are freaking out are either outsiders who are enjoying the attention/grifting in the culture wars, or it’s deliberate propaganda from insiders.

    And it’s not limited to SpaceX. It’s well documented just how much intelligence and state department officials participate in corporate America, from social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google, the US TikTok) to telecom (AT&T, Verizon, StarLink, Google) to high tech (Google, Intel, Oracle, Palantir) to weapons (look it up) to finance (In-Q-Tel, Cerberus, Paladin, BIA). And that doesn’t even cover all of the active duty officers who take jobs in US companies with overseas offices in order to create a cover for their presence.

    This isn’t shit the USA leaves to emotions and temper tantrums of celebrities. This is war with America’s second most important opponent in the world. Musk doesn’t buy one of the State Dept’s and intelligence’s most leveraged propaganda company (Twitter), when it already has a dozen officers already there, when it has to go through the FTC, when it’s heavily integrated into the financial network, without having handlers.

    • BigNote@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      There is no universe in which I feel myself obliged to read and respond to your wall of text.

      I think you have mistaken me for someone who actually gives a fuck about your long-winded, deeply uninformed and rather dreary opinion.

      You would be doing yourself a kindness by reserving such rants for those who actually give a shit about what you have to say.

      • freagle
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        10 months ago

        I’ll shorten it for you.

        Y’all ignorant.

        • BigNote@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Everyone is free to have uniformed opinions about their interlocutors in an anonymous Internet forum. You calling me “ignorant” doesn’t hurt my feelings at all. I’ve been called a lot worse by better people than you.