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”
I find it difficult to hold Musk responsible for this. He’s a private citizen, not a nation. He doesn’t need to take part of a war, however just.
Didn’t Pentagon take over these anyway since, or was this update related to something recent?
edit Good points everywhere, I suck donkey dicks
I do not find it difficult to hold him responsible. He himself petitioned and won the contract from the Pentagon in order to provide satellite connectivity to the Ukraine. He then got cold feet about it and revoked this connectivity without communicating that to the Ukrainian military and intentionally flubbed a counter attack that would have (and, thus, didnt) prevented the missile launches that destroyed the lives and property of a ton of civilians. In his twisted sense of morality, he and Starlink would have been responsible for the acts of war of the Ukranian military, but by revoking their access to Starlink, preventing their actions, he’s somehow not responsible for the immediate consequences of their inability to act. The consequences being the deaths of non-combatant civilians under attack from a foreign invader on sovereign lands. He is wrong. He is still responsible.
Imagine Smith and Wesson sold you an AI smart gun with aim assist on the notion that it could be used in defense of self and home. Later they decided that they didn’t want to be complicit in your decision to fire it at a person, and so they secretly sent out an update that made it so that you COULDN’T fire the gun at a person. Someone breaks into your home and attacks you, and you pull out your gun to defend yourself. Then it will not fire. It refuses to let you make the choice to defend yourself, so you are maimed or killed by your assailant. Please explain to me how Smith and Wesson wouldn’t be in any way responsible for your death.
It’s even worse than that in Elon’s case. He knows that Ukraine is under attack. He knows that Russia is invading and killing civilians. He knows that he is being paid specifically to provide connectivity to them in order to facilitate communications and military actions in Ukraine, and not only agreed to that but specifically sought out the contract to do so. And he knows that the inaction of the Ukrainian military will result in more deaths. Yet he chose to secretly remove their ability to make such actions after he made them reliant on him. He is responsible. “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Not just catchy lyrics, but truth.
All good points.
I suggest you read the response from u/kryptonianCodeMonkey for a general idea of why this was a poor decision by Musk. And no, the Pentagon did not take over Starlink, the Pentagon is footing the bill because, you know, billionaires gotta billionaire.
I don’t. By all accounts, he personally made the call to interrupt Internet service in a way that directly impacted a military operation.
If he had personally made the call from the start not to allow Starlink to be used for any military purposes, that would align with his claim to not want to take part in the war.
He sold the deal to Ukraine via the pentagon. Ukraine is a US ally, so the pentagon coordinated the sale.
If anything, this sounds like he lied to both the pentagon and Ukraine about the terms of the deal. Or he reneged on the deal by refusing to give Ukraine access. His argument thus far has basically been “I didn’t want to be implicated” but he sold them to Ukraine specifically for that purpose via the pentagon. So that argument doesn’t really hold water, because he knew what he was selling right from the start.
My guess is that he’s a Russian asset. Russia has some sort of leverage on Elon, and realized they couldn’t get their ships out to sea before the drone strike happened. So they told Elon to pull the plug to protect their ships.
Epstein didn’t kill himself
That’s my bet as well. We know Elon was on Epstein’s island because of the documents that got released. That much is known fact, and pretty indisputable. The issue is what he potentially did (and potentially got filmed doing) on said island. If that footage found its way into Russian hands, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that Elon is being blackmailed by Putin.
So you’re just ignoring the whole part of he didn’t shut it off, it was always off?
He denied a request to extend it.
He didn’t turn it off to prevent an immenent attack on Russia.
Say what you want about their decision to not activate it there, or your opinion on his stance of not wanting to be involved in the war even though it was the most obvious thing ever, but don’t go making shit up.
EDIT BELOW WITH RESPONSE Walter Isaacson
https://twitter.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1700342242290901361?s=20
To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.
So you are saying that the independent, well respected journalist who wrote the Biography is lying, while the demonstrably unethical billionaire is telling the truth?
The independent respected journalist, has now clarified things and it matches what Musk said
https://twitter.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1700342242290901361?s=20
It would be incredibly easy to miss hear something along these lines, so yes, this journalist may have fucked up.
He’s not denying he didn’t turn it on to protect the fleet.
You hear some conversation and he’s saying no don’t turn it on, I don’t want them to hit the fleet and escalate the war yadda yadda yadda and that gets misconstrued to he actively turned it off.
He’s openly admitted in the past that they actively were turning it off on the front lines as well. Crimea wasn’t a front line, so that also jives with it already being off.
So you are saying that he made up the part about the sub drones washing ashore. Got it.
No?
The attack failed because there was no internet there and he didn’t turn it on.
So your implication here is that a major military counter strike was predicated on the network being extended just as the drones were headed to their targets?
That the strike plan was put into action, and then a request was made to extend the network whilst they were already moving and as they were approaching a point of losing contact?
Does that really make sense to you?
From the biographer matching what Musk said and you’ve all been downvoting me for.
https://twitter.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1700342242290901361?s=20
No
But Ukraine not knowing it wasn’t enabled in contested zones and then doing the attack and realizing it wasn’t going to work does.
To them, that would look like it was turned off when contact was lost. They put in an emergency order and he says he won’t turn it on.
Further to my other reply
There’s already past proof that Ukraine didn’t know that starlink would be off at the front lines.
So to say there’s no way they wouldn’t know is provably false
What very likely happened is an asset told them the ships were docked, they sent them, and shit went sideways.
Edit: unless Ukraine comes back and says they successfully sent a recon drone first all the way successfully there’s no reason to believe they’d previously tested it so far, so early. A land asset makes more sense
Musk literally sent the Ukrainian military the receivers for this. What do you think starlink was being used for in Ukraine? Shutting it off when Musk did is essentially sabotage. Him hiding behind “I didn’t want things to escalate” is the lamest most transparent lie.
Nah he’s probably telling the truth – he spent an evening reading about nuclear proliferation and nuclear war and decided at 4 am before going to bed that he was an expert and knew best. He’s just an idiot.
The main thing, is he is trying to reframe it as he didn’t turn it back on when asked. As he wants inaction to be in his favor. He wants to move away from the frame that he disabled it in the first place, as that was an action and can’t be explained away as “not getting involved”.
That’s a fair point. Actively disabling it at the last minute, after everything had been underway, is significant.