SpaceX blocked Starlink's work for Ukrainian military because of Musk's political sympathies

Musk's company SpaceX, which in 2022 undertook to provide access to the Internet across Ukraine, blocked the connection for the Ukrainian Armed Forces as soon as the Armed Forces entered the occupied territory, which is encroached on by Russia.

Source: The New Yorker

Quote: "SpaceX, Musk’s space-exploration company, had for months been providing Internet access across Ukraine, allowing the country’s forces to plan attacks and to defend themselves. But, in recent days, the forces had found their connectivity severed as they entered territory contested by Russia," the media outlet writes.

"We started to get a little panicked. Musk "could turn it off at any given moment. And that would have real operational impact for the Ukrainians," a US Defense Ministry official told the publication.

As The New Yorker writes with reference to sources, it would be difficult for Russia to dismantle the Ukrainian connection completely. But Musk could do it.

This was told by three people involved in the introduction of Starlink in Ukraine. They all spoke on condition of anonymity.

As the media sources said, at first, no one even thought about the influence that Elon Musk could potentially have. Moreover, at that moment, thoughts were about the deaths of people and the need to act.

In the following months, it was possible to transfer thousands of pieces of Starlink equipment to Ukraine.

At first, Elon Musk showed unconditional support for the Ukrainian cause, but later, SpaceX began to express various doubts.

"We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time," SpaceX's director of government sales said in a letter to the Pentagon last September.

Elon Musk was also increasingly concerned that his technology was being used to wage war. At the conference in Aspen, he even expressed support for Vladimir Putin and declared the need for negotiations.

In addition, he tried to convince people of the alleged inevitability of the result in favour of Russia and conducted a survey among subscribers about his plan. The majority spoke against Elon Musk's idea.

Reid Hoffman, who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk, said he appeared to have "taken the Putin bait hook, line and sinker".

His sympathies also began to manifest themselves on the battlefield. One day, the Ukrainian troops, which were advancing in the south, suddenly found themselves without communication.

"We crossed this border and the Starlink stopped working. Communications became dead, units were isolated. When you're on offense, especially for commanders, you need a constant stream of information from battalions. Commanders had to drive to the battlefield to be in radio range, risking themselves. It was chaos," one of the military, who, at that time, was on the front line, told the publication,

Another Ukrainian who participated in the fighting said he "was awoken by a dozen calls saying they'd lost connectivity and had to retreat".

Interruptions in communication affected units in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk.

American and Ukrainian officials believe that SpaceX deliberately interrupted the communication, limiting the geofences.

A series of meetings were held to resolve the situation.

The Pentagon would need to reach a contractual agreement with SpaceX so that, at a minimum, Musk "couldn’t wake up one morning and just decide he doesn't want to do this anymore."

"It was kind of a way for us to lock in services across Ukraine. It could at least prevent Musk from turning off the switch altogether," explained Colin Kahl, former US Deputy Secretary of Defense.

"My inference was that he was getting nervous that Starlink’s involvement was increasingly seen in Russia as enabling the Ukrainian war effort, and was looking for a way to placate Russian concerns," added Colin Kahl.

In the end, Elon Musk abandoned his threats to stop the service. And in June of this year, the US Department of Defence announced that it had reached an agreement with SpaceX.

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