Elon Musk ‘Secretly’ Used Starlink To Foil A Ukrainian Attack On Russian Naval Fleet Over Fear Of Nuclear War: Report

Flying Squid@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 1670 points –
Elon Musk ‘Secretly’ Used Starlink To Foil A Ukrainian Attack On Russian Naval Fleet Over Fear Of Nuclear War: Report
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What an utter piece of shit.

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Stop trying to tell a private citizen and businessman what he can and can’t do with his own business

He got to where he is with government funding.

Turn off the tap. Now.

First of all he got there by being the best businessman in the world, lots a hard work and plucky stick-to-it-ive-ness plus a keen eye for innovation. Think about this. If he hadn’t used his space satellites to stop the Ukies, Putin could have launched the Nukies! Basically he saved the planet and this is the thanks you give him. No good deed goes unpunished

Best business man in the world. Buys an unprofitable company for 40b, then runs it directly into the ground. Genius.

It’s part of a bigger strategy that you wouldn’t understand

Strategically losing billions, bold plan cotton

The troll account is annoying when you're crowding out other discussion.

I’m the only one bringing common sense to these discussions at all

He got where he is off the back of slavery in an emerald mine his father runs you twat

When you have a contract with the federal government it comes with stipulations. Don't "private citizen" this. It's not a mom and pop store.

But Starlink DIDN'T have a contract with the US government, DOD, or Ukraine government. That's the point. And they went ahead and used it for guided munitions.

Which is a violation of the terms of service and not what anyone at SpaceX had intended.

Problem is, that's exactly how they ended up being used!

You're tracking that Starlink sells service directly to the US military for activities that aren't exactly tickle parties right?

True, but didn't Starshield happen after this stuff? I guess I need to relook at the timeline. But as I remember things, he started tossing starlink access at Ukraine, tried to get DoD to pay, they chose not to. Then he started to these games, and after that DoD started paying up. Starshield was announced a little bit after that.

Where do you draw the line? Should he also be allowed to sell his services to Russia? Should private companies from the US be allowed to sell arms to Russia?

Never mind that. Let’s suppose he can sell his services to whomever he likes.

What about the privacy implications? How did he know that specific attack was planned? Can he just listen in on any communication going across Starlink? I don’t think anyone should be okay with that.

How did he know that specific attack was planned?

Ukraine asked him to extend Starlink coverage for the attack.

No conspiracy theory needed, they just told him.

Since he runs Starlink, he has a map of where every single Starlink receiver is located. Literally, a real time map with GPS coordinates.

Russia would kill to have that info.

However, musk also hack and jam proofed Starlink to help Ukraine too.

There's currently sanctions on buying or selling a lot of things from Russia aren't there?

The whole reason this happened is because he disabled Starlink satellites over Russia in order to help the Ukrainian war effort. He just refused to turn it on for a specific offensive operation in Crimea that Ukraine requested - claiming he wanted to avoid escalation. Him and the US government were in agreement during time. Remember the US did not want to give tanks and planes because of fear of escalation.

I don't mean to try and put a damper on the 5 minute hate session but I wish people would make an effort to try and understand what is happening before they make all sorts of wild conclusions and statements.

I'm not sure where the line is but expecting a private citizen to provide vital defense infrastructure to your foreign allies and continually act in your best interests is clearly past it.

The issue is removing infrastructure on your own personal whims when it goes against what your own tax payers are paying for, especially when they have funded your company / companies. It's obscene.

Except it wasn't "removed", he declined to "extend" it before getting paid by those tax payers.

Of course. That’s called capitalism and the free market. Don’t like it? Move to Venezuela

Nah, I'd rather attack the cancer that is capitalism at the source and work to rid the world of its scourge once and for all. Sorry you chose the loser's side.

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Why? I think capitalism’s a toxic system and he has no moral right to his wealth.

Exactly, you can't have your cake and eat it - if we want to live in a sane and moral world we shouldn't let private citizens own things that are important, especially not satellite infrastructure

"Citizen" is the critical word here

"Ukraine" telling a "US citizen" what to do, are the critical words here.

Hes a US Citizen undermining the US Government

Is he? Did the US Government issue an order to attack Russian assets? Even Russian assets on Ukrainian soil? Even to support any Ukrainian effort to attack Russian assets?

So far it's been a "we give Ukraine some stuff and intel, and let them do the fighting while keeping a semblance of plausible deniability".

Sounds more like a direct involvement in the attack, would've been undermining the US Government.

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