Russia's invasion of Ukraine puts tech giants in an untenable situation.
According to the posts on social media, they must choose their side.
Elon Musk, the CEO of high-end electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla (TSLA), and incidentally the richest man in the world, finds himself in a delicate position.
He was personally questioned on Saturday on Twitter by the Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister and minister of digital transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.
"@elonmusk, while you try to colonize Mars - Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space - Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand," Fedorov wrote on his Twitter account.
The post has been liked by over 66,000 users at the time of writing and has been retweeted over 10,000 times.
Starlink is Available in Ukraine
Several hours after the post, Musk replied directly to Fedorov, letting him understand that he had reacted and that no doubt the lag time between the query and his response was due to the fact that he wanted to provide a practical solution to the problem that was posed to him.
"Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route," Musk replied.
As many comments to the billionaire's post pointed out, by allowing Ukrainians access to Starlink, one of the fastest, most robust satellite internet systems, Musk and his company SpaceX make it impossible for Russia to disable the Ukrainian internet access fully without cyber attacking foreign data centers.
"TRANSLATION - " Ukraine people have access to the fastest satellite internet system ever created. Russia can not disable the Ukrainian internet access fully without cyber attacking foreign data centers," commented one user.
As is often the case with Elon Musk fans, most of the comments were glowing.
"STRONG MOVE," one user wrote.
Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty
"Great move. Elon is a smart man," another added.
In any case, Fedorov seemed delighted and was quick to announce the news on his account by retweeting Musk's response.
"Starlink terminals are coming to Ukraine! Thank you @elonmusk, thank you everyone, who supported Ukraine!" he said.
Facebook Has also Announced anti-Russian Measures
Starlink, SpaceX's first consumer product, is high-speed internet powered by a network of thousands of small low-orbit satellites.
The company has already launched more than 2,000 Starlink satellites, with an overall goal of launching about 12,000.
Musk's plan to turn SpaceX, his rocket and space tech company, into a firm capable of transporting people to the moon and Mars rests of the profitability of the Starlink.
SpaceX debuted Starlink Premium, an internet broadband service that costs five times its standard service, a few weeks ago. The standard service costs $499 for the hardware and $99 a month.
Fedorov has been working for 24 hours to call on tech giants to block their products and services in Russia in protest against the invasion of Ukraine. He thus sent a letter to Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple (AAPL).
"I appeal to you and I am sure that you will not only hear, but also do everything possible to protect Ukraine, Europe and finally, the entire democratic world from bloody authoritarian aggression," Fedorov wrote in the letter. "To stop supplying Apple Services and products to the Russian Federation, including blocking access to App Store!"
Besides Apple, he made similar requests to Google (GOOGL), Netflix (NFLX), Youtube and Facebook (FB). But Facebook, now called Meta, has already announced measures against Russian entities.
One of the measures is: "We are now prohibiting Russian state media from running ads or monetizing on our platform anywhere in the world. We also continue to apply labels to additional Russian state media. These changes have already begun rolling out and will continue into the weekend," said Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Facebook.
Twitter (TWTR) has also announced almost similar measures.
The night from Friday to Saturday was marked by an intensification of the air raids of Russia on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital two days after the beginning of Ukraine by Russia.
The death toll continues to rise: The Ukrainian health minister said in a facebook post on Saturday that 198 people had been killed in the fighting, including three children, and 1,115 were wounded, including 33 children. Early Friday, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had said that at least 137 people had been killed and 316 wounded.
The U.S and the European Union have already announced an unprecedented package of sanctions against Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov, his minister of foreign affairs, are now targeted, in addition to more than 20 personalities from the business world.
Musk donated 50 satellite terminals to restore the internet in Tonga, whose telecommunications network was severely disrupted by a tsunami this year.
