Musk gives control of some Starlink equipment and services to Pentagon – WP
Walter Isaacson, biographer of the American billionaire Elon Musk, who founded Tesla and SpaceX, has said that a certain amount of equipment and services of the Starlink satellite network has come under Pentagon control.
Source: The Washington Post
Details: According to Isaacson, Musk wanted to distance himself from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fearing that the use of SpaceX technology could lead to nuclear war.
Quote: "He said, ‘Why am I in this war?’ He said, ‘I created Starlink so people could chill and watch Netflix movies and play video games. I did not mean to create something that might cause a nuclear war’," Isaacson said, quoting Musk.
Isaacson said he had asked Musk whether he had spoken with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan or General Mark Milley.
"And he had. He’d been talking to them, and he said, ‘If they tell me to do something, I would do it if I got a directive’," Isaacson said.
According to Isaacson, Musk no longer controls the geofencing or Starlink terms of use.
Background:
- CNN, which obtained an excerpt from Musk's biography written by American journalist and author Walter Isaacson, reported that in 2022 Musk supposedly secretly ordered the disconnection of Starlink communications off the coast of Crimea to disrupt Ukraine's attack on the Russian navy in Sevastopol.
- After that, Elon Musk responded to reports that he allegedly secretly ordered the Starlink satellite connection near the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea to be shut down to disrupt Ukraine's attack on the Russian Navy in Sevastopol. The billionaire said that he did not deactivate Starlink satellite communication for drones, but when Ukraine requested that the system be enabled, he refused.
- The Financial Times later reported that Musk gave his biographer access to private messages from Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation and Minister of Digital Transformation, without asking for permission. Later, however, Fedorov agreed to his correspondence with Musk being published in the businessman's biography.
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