Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter and the world’s richest man, is currently facing criticism over his decision to restrict the availability of his Starlink satellite high-speed broadband service to Ukraine.
When Russia first invaded its western neighbour on 24 February 2022, Mr Musk responded to an appeal for help from Ukraine’s vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov by generously dispatching 20,000 SpaceX Starlink terminals to the country.
Since then, Vladimir Putin’s forces have relentlessly targeted Ukraine’s telecommunications infrastructure with missile strikes. This has caused Kyiv to rely on SpaceX’s technology as a source of uninterrupted, independent and secure internet access, enabling lines of communication to remain open with its troops on the frontline of the conflict in the south and east.
Starlink’s small, portable terminals are ideal for the situation because they have minimal energy requirements and are difficult to hack.
“Over 100 cruise missiles attacked energy and communications infrastructure. But with Starlink we quickly restored the connection in critical areas. Starlink continues to be an essential part of critical infrastructure,” Mr Fedorov tweeted in praise of the tech on 12 October.
Mr Musk acknowledged its vital role in a tweet of his own from 31 January this year in which he also expressed discomfort about the Ukrainian military using the service to fly drones carrying anti-tank grenades over Russian positions. He said he would “not allow” the practice to continue.
“SpaceX Starlink has become the connectivity backbone of Ukraine all the way up to the front lines. This is the damned if you do part,” he tweeted. “However, we are not allowing Starlink to be used for long-range drone strikes. This is the damned if you don’t part.”
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell duly announced that the service would be limited in the country for military purposes but that it would remain available for communications and use in humanitarian endeavours, such as enabling Ukrainian hospitals to remain connected.
Starlink was “never meant to be weaponised”, she said.
Mykailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, responded to the move by issuing an ultimatum: “A year of Ukrainian resistance & companies have to decide: Either they are on the side of Ukraine & the right to freedom, and don’t seek ways to do harm. Or they are on RF’s side & its ‘right’ to kill & seize territories. SpaceX (Starlink) and Mrs Shotwell should choose a specific option.”
When ex-Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly called on Mr Musk to rethink the step, the tech magnate answered: “You’re smart enough not to fall for media and other propaganda. Starlink is the main source of communication for Ukraine, especially at the front lines where almost all other internet connections have been lost. However, we will not contribute to escalation of conflict that could lead to World War 3.”
To his credit, Mr Musk has made his position on the matter abundantly clear, tweeting on 16 September: “Starlink is meant for peaceful use only.”
He reiterated that argument on 12 February in defence of his latest actions, tweeting: “SpaceX commercial terminals, like other commercial products, are meant for private use, not military, but we have not exercised our right to turn them off. We’re trying hard to do the right thing, where the ‘right thing’ is an extremely difficult moral question.”
Mr Musk has been more consistent in taking this line than he has on other projects – the running of Twitter, for instance – with the product’s terms of service even explicitly stating: “Starlink is not designed or intended for use with or in offensive or defensive weaponry or other comparable end-uses.”
But this is not the first time he has placed the future of its role in the war in doubt – and attracted criticism for doing so.
Back in October, he began to gripe about the cost of his philanthropy, revealing in a tweet: “This operation has cost SpaceX $80m & will exceed $100m by end of year.”
That same month, CNN reported that SpaceX’s director of government sales, Bryon Hargis, had written to the Pentagon in September asking for the US Department of Defense to pick up the bill instead.
“We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” he said, according to the report.
The adverse public reaction to the story appeared to change Mr Musk’s mind on withdrawing funding and he tweeted: “The hell with it… Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer dollars, we’ll just keep funding the Ukrainian government for free.”
On the war more generally, Mr Musk raised eyebrows by challenging Mr Putin to “single combat” on 14 March, an odd attempt to introduce some levity among the brutality of war.
Then in October, just prior to the Starlink controversy, the billionaire sparked international outrage when he tweeted his proposal to bring peace to Ukraine. The proposal suggested, among other measures, the concession of land to Russia, a red-line for most Ukrainians.
“Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people,” Mr Musk said. “Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake). Water supply to Crimea assured. Ukraine remains neutral. This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end – just a question of how many die before then. Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war.”
The thread was accompanied by a poll inviting Mr Musk’s followers to indicate whether or not they approved of his ideas: 40.9 per cent of respondents were in favour but 59.1 per cent were opposed.
President Zelensky hit back with a Twitter poll of his own, asking his followers which version of Elon Musk they preferred: the one who supports Ukraine or the one who supports Russia.
The pro-Ukraine incarnation of Musk drew 78.8 per cent of the vote.
Mr Musk responded: “I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world.”
Kyiv’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, was rather less polite.
“F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to you Elon Musk,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was more sympathetic to the tycoon’s ideas, saying it was “very positive that somebody like Elon Musk is looking for a peaceful way out of this situation”.
