Elon Musk announced Saturday via Twitter that Starlink will continue to donate satellite internet service to Ukraine to continue helping the country defend itself from Russia’s invasion. The move comes a day after news broke that Musk was asking the Pentagon to pick up the full tab for Ukraine that was costing Musk about $20 million per month. The Defense Department and other countries and NGOs have been paying some of the approximately 12,000 Starlink terminals and service fees, but Starlink was still donating a large amount while having to divert resources to fending off cyber attacks, Musk said.
In recent days Musk has faced sharp criticism from Ukraine over a peace deal he proposed and by Biden officials for asking to get paid for the Starlink service like other defense contractors.
Elon Musk, file screen image.
Musk said, “The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free”
Musk replied to one commenter who noted the old saw, “No good deed goes unpunished, saying, “Even so, we should still do good deeds.”
Musk also criticized the anonymous U.S. official who trashed him in the Washington Post, saying, “That dude is not just a “condition of anonymity” spineless coward, he’s also an ignorant fool. Starlink was directly requested by the Ukraine government, as it was the only thing that worked.”
Musk noted the toll on his company, “It has required a lot of our resources. Going into super lockdown mode slows down new development progress, as we have to resist attacks from a sophisticated adversary actively at war.”
Earlier, Musk reiterated his plea to avoid nuclear war, “But surely no reasonable person would launch nuclear war?…The problem with that logic is if we were dealing with reasonable people, we wouldn’t have war in the first place. Russia has the ability to destroy USA & Europe utterly with nuclear missiles in less than 30 minutes & vice versa. A surprising number of people don’t know this. Of course, it would be MAD to use them, but it is also MAD to be in this situation at all…Would be great if someday humanity stopped pointing nukes at itself that would destroy almost all life on Earth. In any given year, there is a chance above zero that they will be launched. We are now at the highest risk in 60 years.”
Raheem Kassam suggested Musk use Raytheon letterhead to get paid by the Pentagon, “Just send an invoice with Raytheon logo at the top and it’ll get paid. No one checks”
Musk wryly replied, “The hilarious thing is you’re not wrong”
Musk replied to harsh criticism by Kim Dotcom who said, “In other words you will continue your support for the US proxy war in Ukraine despite your better knowledge that this is a US proxy war and the risk of a nuclear war because of the US proxy war? And we are supposed to believe that you will fix @twitter? How utterly disappointing.”
Musk replied, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, so … guess I’m just damned”
Friday night, Musk invited his critics to take over, “Starlink is the primary communications system of the Ukrainian army on the war front. If anyone else wants this job, please be my guest.” Apparently there were no takers because no one can do what Elon does with Starlink.