US Senate demands investigation into Musk and Starlink's operation in Ukraine

Tuesday, 12 September 2023, 10:09

US Senator Elizabeth Warren has demanded an investigation into SpaceX after Elon Musk admitted that he blocked Ukraine's access to Starlink to prevent an attack on Russian warships off the coast of Crimea.

Source: Bloomberg, as reported by European Pravda

Quote: "The Congress needs to investigate what’s happened here and whether we have adequate tools to make sure foreign policy is conducted by the government and not by one billionaire," said a representative of the Democratic Party from Massachusetts on Monday at the Capitol.

Details: Musk is expected to be among the tech executives attending a closed-door meeting with senators at the Capitol on Wednesday.

Warren, a member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, added that she also wants the Department of Defense to review its contractual relationship with the company.

Jack Reed, Chairman of the US Armed Services Committee, a Rhode Island Democrat, said he was also concerned over the issue, given that governments have traditionally controlled satellites and left it up to presidents to decide what to do with them.

He pointed out that there have been significant positive changes as SpaceX has lowered the cost of access to space, including for national security launches, "but he can’t be the last word when it comes to national security," Reed said, referring to Musk.

Background:

CNN, which obtained an excerpt of Musk's biography written by American journalist and author Walter Isaacson, reported that in 2022, Elon Musk secretly ordered the Starlink satellite connection near the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea to be shut down in order to disrupt an attack by Ukraine on the Russian naval fleet in Sevastopol.
Later, Musk himself confirmed that the drone attack on the Russian fleet in Crimea had been disrupted.

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