Elon's got Putin's back.

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.

so while I hate this guy, starlink is complicit in the war either way. either for russia, or for ukraine.
War is peace.
- Musk is love.
Starlink was specifically agreed for civilian use only. It's the Ukraine who tries to breach that agreement, SpaceX simply doesn't want to be accused of exporting weapons
- That's a bullshit excuse used by Melon's fan boys.
  Whether the technology is restricted by ITAR isn't based whether it was ever used as a weapon, but whether the US government thinks it can be used as a weapon.
- Yeah, if a much larger country was invading, shelling apartment buildings, mining the fuck out of farmland and murdering thousands of people, I'd probably breach a ToS.
  Also, that sounds a bit absurd considering he just got the US DoD to pay for Ukraine's starlink service.
- No it wasn't. The Pentagon pays for the service explicitly as military aid to Ukraine. Since, you know, Russia blew up a lot of Ukrainian infrastructure.
- Saying ‘the Ukraine’ gives away your loyalties, tovarisch.

Uber wealthy private citizens able to control the path of wars in countries they don’t live in.

That’s some dystopian shit.

It's always been that way though
- Almost exclusively, in fact.
- Not to this degree. Musk is the richest person ever to have lived. He’s got more money than most nations on the planet have ever had, comparatively. His wealth, power, and influence are obscene.
  His wealth is currently growing at $14.75 million per hour. He could spend a million dollars every day for a thousand years and still be the richest person on earth.
  I don’t think many people can fathom how extreme his wealth hoarding actually is. It’s literally mind-boggling. He could single-handedly solve the hunger crisis planet-wide and make a huge impact on the climate crisis, but instead he uses his money to fellate himself, take credit for others’ work, and ruin things.
  In the past, kings and barons have only wished to have the money and power he wields, and this is what he’s doing with it. It’s absolutely shameful.
- nah, it's a relatively new thing, like only found after ww2.
It's important to note that the company, and the technology being used was not created by him, too. He just bought it... And now he's doing evil things with it while he pretends he's some sort of anti-war hero.
Like... Congratulations, douchebag, you helped a defend an evil superpower during their active, unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation involving countless war crimes and crimes against humanity. What a fuckin' hero you are, Elon.

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.

So they can Netflix and chill during the Russian invasion. That's definitely what these devices were for. No way Elon could've known there was any military usage in a country desperately fighting for it's existance.
- He's said as much... That's the really fucked up part. He's behind
  “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes”. -Elon Musk
  Like... 'don't worry about the war crimes, just Netflix and chill, Ukraine.'
  Fuck Elon Musk.

"If I had agreed to their request, then spacex would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't SpaceX be explicitly complicit in conflict escalation by interfering with Ukraine's ability to defend itself?

i guess we found out what musk thinks about the trolley problem
Couldn't you say the same thing about power companies and the mail system? We're taking about shutting off utilities to help/hinder those that align with ideals.
Well at the very least you have to agree, that he was in quite a dilemma. If he allows it, he interferes by action. If he doesn't, he interferes by inaction.
To him, and to me too, inaction seems more impartial, which is probably all he cares about at this point, and once again it's what I would probably care about too.
You can be mad at someone who is impartial, but at the end of the day, the only thing you are mad at, is them not doing jack-shit, which of course can be very annoying.
- Not really since its already being used by the military, knowingly and deliberately provided.
  So he's already active.
- He had a choice in his hands with privileged information, then he chose the Russian side. This declarations are just justification to wash his hands, he is team Putin all the way, always has been. He has been seen partying with Russian oligarchs. The reason he bought SpaceX was because his original idea of buying dismantled ICBMs from his rusky arms dealer pals was too incredibly stupid to pull off, and it was easier to do it by way of an aerospace company.
  Starlink service was bought by Ukraine to provide internet access to civilians and the military. Technically it was provided by the US because Musk offered to, for free initially, though he later pedalled back to charge inordinate amounts of money. Which the US and UA agreed to pay anyway. Because single companies monopolizing entire control to fundamental services is a huge issue. War time or not. He is profiteering and unfortunately owns the only company that can provide this specific kind of service. But in strategic matters, he will always go to bat for his BFF Vova.
- People just don't get it. All they want is dead Russians. I myself would prefer humiliated and defeated Russians, not necessarily dead. All they have to do is capitulate and admit they are losers and ill be happy.
"The best defense is a good offense"
Looks like you're right... I doubt the Russians agree with you though, lol.
Elon musk is not a military entity. He is a private citizen. His taxes just like yours and mine are going into this war. But he is also providing starlink to the civilian population as a humanitarian gesture. Expecting every private citizen to get up and wield a weapon against Russia for Ukraine is not realistic, nor does refusal to do so make you complicit in helping Russia. Just like being a conscientious objector in Vietnam didn't make you complicit in supporting the Viet Kong.
- Oh pish posh. Elon's isn't providing starlink as a humanitarian, he's making the US government pay for it. That's his whole game, subsidized capitalism that gives him plausible deniability.
- Taxes? This clown is far too rich to pay taxes.

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.

He should be put on a list now imho.

Moscow simply paid him more than Kyiv. Probably accompanied by the phrase "Would be a shame if these pictures got out".
- We've seen him shirtless. They can't show us anything worse than that.

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.

- Which country will nationalize literal satellites flying outside of any country's jurisdiction?
If anything, Ukraine having control over the Black Sea means they can prolong their effort in the war, not end it quicker.
- Yes because somehow Ukraine defeating Russia will lead to the war continuing... what the fuck is wrong with you.
While I hate elon, this is a bad take. Ukraine and russia boarder each other. Most of the fighting has been over land. What good is a navy in such a battle? The most I could think of is shelling but AFAIK russia has been doing it's shelling with traditional artillery. Further, Russia's navy is a hot garbage mess. They only have 1 aircraft carrier and it's been scuttled for pretty much the entire war (and has constantly caught on fire while being scuttled).
The only wars that are hard to fight without a navy are wars where a significant portion of the warring nation and front-lines are near the water. That's not this war.
Not to say there aren't advantages to Ukraine sinking the russian navy. But rather, it's unlikely that "the war would have ended tomorrow if they did".
- The russian navy can exert control and is a threat to the hundreds of kilometrrs of black sea cost as well as the ukrainian ports being absolutely crucial to the ukranian economy.
  Also dictators like their fancy navy. Blowing it up would damage Putins image tremendously

Fighting back counts as escalation?

If you're an orc bootlicker like EM yep

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.

Government contracts for Starlink services

If he tried cutting off the US military during an active operation, his life could be made very bad very quickly.
That would be literal treason.
- It's already treason since he has provided aid and comfort to a hostile foreign government.
shades of howard hughs level wacky, but no one ever thought he'd work with the russians.
And space-x represent a host of capabilities that certainly fall in the country's direct security interest. nationalize spacex?
it would never ever be considered but musk is that fucking stupid.
also, he's lost tens of billions via twitter, so he's ripe for compromise.
tsk...
Correction. He doesn't have a problem providing the US with service because the government pays a SHITLOAD for guaranteed access to that. Ukraine cannot afford such expenditures.
I think space X shouldn't be involved with the war. It is not a military company. I don't know, just my opinion.

And now he is complicit with numerous ship-based missile attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

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.

He calls himself a free speech absolutist and uses saudi funds to buy twitter at the same time. Then the Saudis use twitter data to give the death penalty to people who don't like them publicly on twitter and elon does - nothing.

How is counter attacking an aggressor's military targets "escalation" ?

Because anything that isn't "Ukraine rolls over and gives Russia everything," is escalation. Obviously.
Nevermind that Russia is the aggressor who invaded another country and has been continually escalating the level of violence they're using. Anything other countries do to help Ukraine is seen as prolonging the war, and anything that Ukraine does to fight back is called escalation.
- Fellas, is humanitarianism when the world's richest capitalist says, "you can borrow my stuff, but only if you use it when and how I want".

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

Hoo boy, if they didn't accept all that money, they wouldn't have a company.
- How so? Starlink predates the agreement musk made with the Pentagon to provide services in Ukraine
So if the country you lived it was being invaded, would you turn off the Internet in your country to prevent acts of war in the form of defensive operations?
- ... if they somehow had control over the entire countries network?
- If the country I lived in was being invaded they'd end civilization with their stockpile of 3000 or so nuclear warheads. Would I help them do that? No.
- Wut?

How is he not in jail already?

I just can’t get my head around this.

The fuck ist happening here

Name 1 thing that hes done thats against the laws of the united states of america?
- Aiding a terrorist regime by disabling this attack and losing Ukrainian assets. Acting as a foreign agent by discussing this with Putin. That's two, right there.
  We've sanctioned Russia heavily for this and begun providing that money to Ukraine as relief. They've stolen children from Ukraine. Elon is a war criminal.

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.

- He DOES like to pretend he's Tony Stark. Perhaps it's part of the cosplay.
Him being stupid and him supporting Russia aren't at all mutually exclusive since supporting Russia is a stupid thing to do in and of itself.

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.

This is an absolute act of evil stupidity.

Don't let individuals amass the wealth of a nation state.
- One can only hope that The Site Formerly Known as Twitter will bankrupt him.

I also know for a fact that elon won't hesitate to do something for Reason A and communicate Reason B as his motivation.

Internalizing that this sort of thing is going on 24/7 in so many parts of life makes me feel absolutely crazy.
Sometimes I wish I could be happily ignorant.

"There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate maritime support all the way to Normandie.
The obvious intent being to invade most of Nazi Europe.
If I had agreed to their request, then my company would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation."

Said the businessman, clearly not a member of the ANP

Dear Mr. Zelenskyy,

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.

~ A nameless internet user.

~ Iron Lynx
- Sssshh! 🤫

Elon is such an insufferable twat.

I like to refer to him as a chodelet.

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.

He's scum.

Won't someone think of the poor ships sitting in a harbour!

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.

Is he a registered foreign agent ? This needs investigated for criminal activities.

I hate the prick too but that's not what "registered foreign agent" means. That's specifically referring to US citizens who perform govt lobbying activity in the employ of foreign interests.
- Yeah, "unregistered foreign agent" works better in this instance.

either way you participated, you just made the wrong choice Mr. Musk

It's well past time to nationalize Starlink.

I could be wrong but doesn't this boil down to how the internet as a whole is used as in it's not the fault of the isp/website what the users do

So would elon accept responsibility for terrorists organizing on his site?

Just my two cents, he's a textbook narcissist. Would he accept responsibility, no. Is his ego so big he thinks he can actually start WWIII and nuclear armageddon, absolutely. Add a dose of kompromat et vois la, Elon Musk is now sympathetic to Russia.
So would elon accept responsibility for terrorists organizing on his site?
I mean, wasn't that the whole point of him purchasing Twitter, for domestic terrorist organizations' benefit?

That explains why you would turn it on. Now explain why you turned it off

Did you read what happened? It was literally turned off the entire time. Ukraine fired at an area that wasn't under starlinks current usage for the war (due to US contraints) and the warheads lost connection.
Your comment is literally the most wrong comment in this whole fiasco yet one of the most upvoted. Yall need to read more

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.

I've never heard of this. Can you explain how this works, please?
- retaliatory action taken by a state whose citizens have been mistreated by a foreign power by treating the subjects of that power similarly; reprisal.
  I'm waiting for an explanation too, unless I'm missing the part where SpaceX and Tesla are considered "foreign governments".
Does Musk count as a foreign power? I mean I could technically see that being the case, but your reasoning here is slightly flawed. That would be like calling Boeing a foreign power outside the U.S.

I am sure that piece of shit would have had absolutely zero problems helping Putin attack the Ukranians though.

There is a difference between blocking internet and switching it back on to kill people, it's a karma debt.
Nah, I get the hate he is getting, I personally develop a serious allergic reaction towards anyone and anything with a net worth of more than a few million dollars. BUT. I don't think he is with the Russians. Why would he be, it would destroy whatever reputation he still had. This one is not a good look either, but as someone who lives not even a thousand kilometers away from the frontline, I personally don't want the Russian fleet "destroyed at anchor" as it would, as Musk has put it "escalate the conflict" and probably by a lot. I want this war to end. And I underatand that some people who probably live very far from Ukraine want to see Russia get punished (as do I to some degree), but that won't happen, at least not without potentially the entire world ending up as collateral damage, or at the very least a few countries around Ukraine, and as luck would have, those would probably include my own.
- Sinking the Russian fleet would cost very few lives and have outsized benefits to Ukraine. Stop sucking Elon's dick, bro.
- I don’t think he is with the Russians
  Well he has used Russian talking points a lot. Including here where he argues that Ukraine defending themselves would be an escalation.

Im surprised the DoD isnt pissed at him.

- I'm sure future contracts have been canceled. Decided to go another direction or no longer interested.
- I hope he gets sent to a black site. Not gonna happen but a man can dream.
If they are, they aren't telling.

I have a slight inkling that someone has some serious dirt on this dude

Can we just send this pathetic traitor to Russia and be done with it

When is he going to jail again? He profited from selling overpriced stocks and colluded with enemies of the state.

Again? He was before? This is new for me.
- Again meaning "remind me again" and not "it's happening again".
Switzerland were neutral in WWII and the USA were neutral until they were attacked by the Japanese, does that mean they were colluding with Nazi Germany?
- Switzerland found itself culpable for helping the Nazis, and the US explicitly was helping the allies,
  The one you failed to ask about was Ireland.
- Swiss were colluding with nazi germany. Where do you think they kept their money?

So is he getting investigated for aiding an enemy of America during a time of war?

Well america isn't at war with Russia and he specifically didn't aid anyone here. I hate this fucker as much as anyone but what you've said makes no sense
- Do it anyway

I'm not a US citizen so my opinion doesn't count for shit. But if it were up to me, the US needs to take control of SpaceX away from the hands of this narcissistic megalomaniac ASAP, as a matter of national security.
No more should subsidies be sent to SpaceX, starship still doesn't fly without exploding, imagine if we put that money into the SLS?

Does he think starlink is an orbital cannon or something.

- Putin said 1v1 him on Rust for Donbas
- It should have been "obvious what they were going to do" the moment their country was invaded and they fought back instead of rolling over.
  Elon Musk is now interfering in the defense against an ongoing genocide. He offered them this infrastructural support, he was going to get paid for it, he has shot himself in the foot on that side of the equation, and he is using that "mistake" to justify interfering in policy and planning for a sovereign government trying to defend its people.
  There's no acceptable way to spin this. As my high school accounting teacher used to say, "You either knew or should have known." He knows what he's doing, or he's dangerously incompetent. Either way, he should be cut off from any opportunity to fuck with Ukraine.

Meanwhile the NSA, CIA, DoD, and probably Biden himself having full access to the entire network because military industrial complex go brrrrrrr

That is not exactly true. While it is true that the military brought Starlinks over to Poland and Musk gave 1500 units to Ukraine as well. There was a lot of back and forth because technically you are not supposed to use a commercial product for actual military operations. For everday activities it was fine but when Ukraine started sending drone feeds over the systems and supplied those feeds to the US Forces, it sort of crossed a line and they had to start negotiating the terms in the contracts as well as scaling back the usage. So all along Musk has been walking a fine line with being complicit with his tech being used for war and trying to avoid it.
Let me clarify I am not a Musk apologist, I am just adding some context. I still do not like that he can seemingly over reach like this, but if the terms were not in place and negotiating was not done he is within his rights.
- And this is why I’m happy to be a hillbilly with no weight on the world stage.
  Fuck that noise.
  I don’t care for musk, but I’d blow my brains out if I found myself in a position like this.
  “Oh, hey, angryseal! Cool tech. A lot of people could be killed with this.”
  No thank you.
That's not actually the MiC, that's just regular national security there's no actual industry behind it.

Not respecting an emergency government request and working in Russian favour, another brilliant move from mr. Musk!

Call him before congress to ask about this.

Take over his shitty company already. He is actively aiding US enemies.

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.

Yeah I was really confused because they already have starlink in Ukraine.
- Musk turned off service to specific areas.

His ethics might follow some business rules: cut your losses, and the winner gets it all.

The Robert House we have at home:

Musk loves to take big Russian cock up his bum.

mm, homophobia, delicious
...
/s

Did you just learn that word and you are just chomping at the bit to use it or...

Elon Musk working with the Russians. Not surprised.

Countries literally furnishing war machines: try not to laugh

Gutless pig fucking money hoarding shitlord. MusX needs to be held accountable

And why exactly this request was made? What did they need it for?

Isnt interfering with such things a major crime? Lol

He's got part of Putin's front in his mouth, too.

A very small part.

Russia can't do false flag attacks, can't take Kiev and can't create sleeper agents that don't out themselves.

Said people who found it ridiculous that Oppenheimer was accused of being a spy.

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.

Does anyone have a reliable source relating to Musk talks with Putin? I'm asking seriously, I can't track it down...

I learnt the hard way in another thread that any comment not synonymous with "corporations should not be allowed to stay neutral regarding international conflicts" is not going to be received kindly.
How dare you ask for a source, sir! Downvote!!!
- Musk started out not neutral. This started as putting starlink over Ukraine to help with the war. Once it looks like they'll succeed in a big strike against Russia, Musk says no. How is that neutral?

This is the sort of good judgment that made him the richest man in the world. Lots of haters here upset that he didn’t help start WW3!

I didn't know he had the ability to choose to be born to a gross and shady emerald mine owner.
- Anybody can work hard and save up to buy an emerald mine, ask your parents why they didn’t do that.

Everyone here acting as if Elon did something wrong deserves to live in war to learn why it's a bad thing, you blood-thirsty dumbasses.

The Ukrainians definately think Elon did wrong. And they live in war. And you're saying they deserve it.
- I don't recall when the American people agreed to have war. I also don't remember when congress agreed to have war.
  America isn't in war with Russia. So, spare me the bullshit. What Elon did stopped an escalation that could've led to a nuclear war. And yes, you deserve what I said. You deserve to feel hunger, and see your family and children die, so that you learn how bad war is and how sometimes you have to learn how to be a real man and shove your ego up your ass to save lives.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or idiocy. No lemmygrad tag, so I'm assuming sarcasm?

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.

Source: trust me bro

The DoD just told musk to spread some disinformation so russia cant claim in public that ukraine is using american satelites.
It's common knowledge that Ukraine is using Starlink. What do you mean? Russia can claim that regardless.
- The other user is making the claim that since starlink is a private company, Russia can't make the claim of them being American satellites.
  It's a flawed assertion but whatever
Dude, the DoD was just something the aliens made you think was real so you wouldn't know they're the ones running everything!
Source: trust no one bro.