What a disingenuous statement. By not agreeing to do it he is complicit in major acts of war, i.e. whatever attacks the Russians do with their fleet. What a tosser.
The way he phrases it is as if Ukraine asked him to enable them to make the attack. They asked him to switch it back on, because he had explicitly disabled service in the area, after giving the devices to Ukraine in the first place.
Elon doesn't get it. He is neck deep in it. With his denying he helps the Invaders whereas with his allowance he would have helped ukraine fighting for their freedom.
Alternate take: Elon Musk knowingly and intentionally prolonged the war in Ukraine. Sinking the Russian fleet at anchor would have been the most expedient way to end the war with as few casualties as possible. It's really really hard to fight a war without a navy.
The last time we capitulated to a dictator who invaded Europe, they didn't stop with just the first invasion. Just because Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons doesn't mean we have to roll over for him and give him an easy win in Ukraine.
The crazy thing is that the Air Force, Army, and just about every other branch of the military has contracted or is looking to contract with Space X to get Starlink. He doesn't have a problem with providing the US with that capability because we're not in direct conflict, but will deny it to ukraine when it's in Russia's favor.
After this I, I would totally re-look those agreements.
I think the fact that to Elon Musk the morals of this are confusing to him, says a lot about who he really is.
Or rather confirms what many may have already expected for a while.
Russia started an unprovoked war against a peaceful neighbor. Ukraine is defending themselves, while Russia can end this instantly, by merely going home. How can Musk doubt the Ukrainians right to defend themselves?
As I see it, he can only do that by having no empathy or sense of morality, something he has shown in many situations now.
Also the escalation thing is a very clear Russian and Putin talking point. Russia call it Ukrainian escalation even if Russia did the same 10 times worse. The only escalation of this conflict is 100% due to Russia being the aggressor and their continued aggression.
If I had a product, I wouldn't want it being used for war either. Know how id handle it? By not accepting millions from the Pentagon in the first place
Part of me thinks that, based on his conduct over the recent years, Elon Musk is exactly so stupid that he never considered that if his company supplies gear for a military, they're going to use it to do, like, military shit, and now he's having a real crisis of conscience because he just never thought that his stuff would be used for, you know, war.
But on this occasion, I'm pretty sure Hanlon's Razor won't apply. Even if he said "Yes, I've been really really stupid about this and I'm a stupid little boy and you can quote me on that, put it on a shirt, make a Netflix documentary about it while you're at it", I'd still think this is is obviously a smokescreen and he's being Putined one way or other.
This whole thing has made me so angry, I'm so upset about this.
Musk doesn't have the power to to stop Russian ships attacking cargo vessels in the black sea so he shouldn't be stopping Ukrainians from fighting back - in their own territory.
Musk is partially to blame for the lack of food coming from Ukraine. He's responsiveness got higher food prices.
If you decide to make Elon Musk a wanted man for interfering with communications infrastructure and wartime military goals, let me just put out there that you have my thumbs up.
He protected militants participating in an attack. This resulted in thousands of civilian deaths by prolonging the war.
That's the only way to look at this.
A few years ago, I saw a SpaceX press conference about the state of the space launch industry. One of the questions asked, by a lady with a heavy Slavic accent, was whether Russia and second-world countries would be allowed to engage in cooperation. The answer was no for reasons of national security.
Now SpaceX has a self-declared wartime Russian agent at its head. How the fucking turntables.
Musk just opened himself up to an act of retorsion. Ukraine can go as hard as they want to after him, because the rule of proportionate response doesn't apply to acts of retorsion.
Just like gps, a global ring of satellites are of vital interest to the defense of the United States. We need to create set of global satellites to replace the star link model.
No longer should nato subsides be sent to starlink.
The US government has also bought terminals for Ukraine. That makes me hopeful that they'll keep Musk from being able to make these sorts of decisions in the future so their investment will be the most useful it can be.
I'm pro-Ukraine, but I can understand someone not wanting their technology to be used for warfare. Saying "here's Starlink, it'll keep you connected even if Russia bombs your lines of communication" is different than saying "here's a technology you can strap to a bomb and guide it to it's destination."
Musk is an egotistical asshole, but there's validity for a company not wanting their technology, their communication pathways, to be used for killing people.
Those in the know will tell you the Ukrainian army is decimated. The Russians have totally wiped them out with very few remaining. They are so desperate for men that Poland forced Ukrainian men living there to go enlist in Ukraine.
Bear in mind Russia did all this using only Reserve fighters (doctors,dentists, teachers, welders etc) plus the Wagner Army for Hire.
They haven't actually deployed their real, properly trained soldiers.....
They are saving those for when they take down the US with China and North Korea helping.
Theatrics.
The DoD can overwrite musk if they want, they have full control over starlink via spaceforce.
In fact the DoD funded the whole thing, musk was just used as a front so people dont get pissed the USA installed the biggest satelite contelation in orbit that has huge military applications.
Its a sure bet starlink is still servicing ukrainian drone ships.
The DoD just told musk to spread some disinformation so russia cant claim in public that ukraine is using american satelites.