The mercurial billionaire turned off Starlink communications just ahead of a submersible drone attack, thinking that the assault might unleash nuclear war, according to a forthcoming book.

クロスポスト: https://hexbear.net/post/539800

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk reportedly caused a geopolitical crisis last year, when Ukrainian forces—which have relied heavily on the company’s Starlink satellite communications—were on the verge of striking Russian naval vessels off the coast of Crimea with submersible drones. Concerned that the attack would provoke Russia into using nuclear weapons, Musk unilaterally opted to sever the submarines’ satellite connection, throwing a wrench in the entire assault.

The incident—shared by CNN based on an adapted excerpt from an upcoming book by Walter Isaacson—demonstrates Musk’s increasing unwillingness to lend his satellite network to offensive maneuvers waged by Ukraine. “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.”

After foiling the attack, Musk reportedly received a desperate text from a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who asked that Musk reinstate the Starlink connection to the drones. “I just want you—the person who is changing the world through technology—to know this,” Fedorov wrote. But Musk refused to reverse course, telling Fedorov that Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat.”

Apparently he was worried that the assault would provoke nuclear war. Musk showing actual thought for the first time in ever.

  • cfgaussian
    93·
    10 months ago

    I wouldn’t even say it’s an awful thing. It’s neither good nor bad, it is what it is. I think more Westerners need to think about when Putin asked: “What good is a world without Russia?” and what that means. I assure you he is by far not the only one in Russia who thinks that way, in fact it may even be the majority opinion in Russian society and in the Russian leadership as a whole. It is also not unique to Russia, most countries with a strong sense of self-identity think the same way. Ukraine certainly does and it has repeatedly shown and pretty much said that it would have no compunctions over triggering WW3 by dragging NATO into a direct war with Russia if that means staving off their own defeat. If Russia is ever under serious threat of being destroyed as a nation, for instance through the kind of balkanization that the West dreams of achieving, they will opt to take the entire world with them. For Americans especially this should be easy to understand as many in the US would do the same. It’s the Europeans who i am much more worried about as they may be unable to grasp this concept since most of them have no such strong attachment to their own countries (myself included) and as a result will make the catastrophic mistake of pushing Russia too far.