Elon Musk "secretly" disrupted a Ukrainian sneak attack on a Russian naval fleet by turning off Starlink's satellite network near the Crimean coast last year.
“As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes.”
That’s from the CNN article over this. The drones were in the middle of their approach when they got deactivated.
There’s a reason there’s weird wording in all of these articles. The reason the drones would have gotten “deactivated” as they got close to Crimea is because before they were near Crimea, they were connected to the system. Once they got close, they got disconnected since the satellites over Crimea were disabled. This is because Musk disabled Starlink over Russian territory very early on. Ukrainian officials would have been well aware before any operation. There are even sanctions in place since 2014 that Obama put in that restricts any company from doing business in Crimea.
The articles are wording it in a way that’s meant to imply that he turned something off mid-operation in an attempt to stop a specific attack. This simply isn’t the case.
I’m honestly impressed at the level of blatant twisting of the truth that’s going around on the news. Are journalists lazy? Is this just click-seeking behavior? Or is it deliberate misinformation and misdirection?
Here’s a quote from the article you linked
the Starlink service provided by his company SpaceX was never active over Crimea and that the Ukrainian government made an “emergency request” to him to turn on service.
“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol,” Musk posted on X, the platform formally known as Twitter that he owns. Sevastopol is a port city in Crimea. “The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
SpaceX has disabled Starlink over Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine. As per Business Insider, some have suggested it may have been shut off over certain regions to prevent Russia from exploiting the network.
prompting speculation that it [starlink system] had been shut off in areas controlled by Russia — perhaps to prevent the Kremlin from exploiting the network.
Speaking to political analyst Ian Bremmer from the Eurasia Group, Musk said that Ukraine’s government had urged him to turn on Starlink in Crimea, which Russia invaded and forcibly occupied in 2014
In September Ukrainian officials told The Economist that Mr Musk had rejected a Ukrainian request to allow Starlink to be used in Crimea, a part of Ukraine which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, … SpaceX has continued to restrict the use of Starlink in Russian-occupied territory, according to Ukrainian officials
I think Musk is scummy, but I appreciate your response here clearing things up. It makes sense why he wouldn’t re-activate it, but at least it’s not like he shut it off mid-flight. They just went out of the known range.
I still think Musk is scummy, but for other reasons.
Yeah I understand why he wouldn’t wanna get involved. Start facilitating aggressive operations and you’re all of a sudden a legitimate military target. I have doubts Russia would shoot down a SpaceX satellite… but you never know.
We generally don’t expect US companies to actively participate in wars, especially a war that the US isn’t officially involved in.
I think Musk’s decision to offer Starlink access for free to Ukraine is an interesting one. On one hand, they get a bunch of good PR for helping out a country during an aggressive invasion - we’re talking hundreds of millions they essentially donated to Ukraine. On the other hand, any good PR they got has probably been canceled out by now. Which I think is ironic - no good deed goes unpunished.
However, I don’t think Musk helped just for good PR. I think he felt it was a good opportunity to show off the capacities of his system during a globally publicized war. And it seems like it has definitely met expectations - the Ukrainians have come to rely on the system. So other countries are taking notice. China and Russia are both developing similar systems.
So yeah, I’d probably do the same thing if I were him. He’s probably just following the advice of his advisors. I think Musk is scummy too. I don’t like him for a number of reasons, the prime being that it seems he’s putting all his eggs on fascists coming to power in the US.
But this specific news cycle I think is a psyop meant to discredit Musk. Which fuck it, I don’t care really. But I like to know the truth, not propaganda. If I dislike someone, I want to dislike them for actual reasons not lies told to me by a news headline.
Honestly, it’s just that journalists want to make Elon Musk look like the bad guy. And thank you so much for taking the time to write this out so that it is far more obvious what’s happening because it’s just so confusing what they’re saying
That’s from the CNN article over this. The drones were in the middle of their approach when they got deactivated.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/07/politics/elon-musk-biography-walter-isaacson-ukraine-starlink/index.html
There’s a reason there’s weird wording in all of these articles. The reason the drones would have gotten “deactivated” as they got close to Crimea is because before they were near Crimea, they were connected to the system. Once they got close, they got disconnected since the satellites over Crimea were disabled. This is because Musk disabled Starlink over Russian territory very early on. Ukrainian officials would have been well aware before any operation. There are even sanctions in place since 2014 that Obama put in that restricts any company from doing business in Crimea.
The articles are wording it in a way that’s meant to imply that he turned something off mid-operation in an attempt to stop a specific attack. This simply isn’t the case.
I’m honestly impressed at the level of blatant twisting of the truth that’s going around on the news. Are journalists lazy? Is this just click-seeking behavior? Or is it deliberate misinformation and misdirection?
Here’s a quote from the article you linked
Here are some articles from 2022
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/musk-denies-blocking-starlink-crimea
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-blocks-starlink-in-crimea-amid-nuclear-fears-report-2022-10
https://news.yahoo.com/elon-musk-blocks-ukraine-using-174508012.html?guccounter=1
That quote is clear and to the point. He didn’t turn anything off. He refused to turn something on.
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/no-starlink-for-ukraine-elon-musk-makes-a-u-turn-turns-down/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/31/elon-musk-starlink-ukraine-drone-attack-crimea/
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/01/05/how-elon-musks-satellites-have-saved-ukraine-and-changed-warfare
I think Musk is scummy, but I appreciate your response here clearing things up. It makes sense why he wouldn’t re-activate it, but at least it’s not like he shut it off mid-flight. They just went out of the known range.
I still think Musk is scummy, but for other reasons.
Yeah I understand why he wouldn’t wanna get involved. Start facilitating aggressive operations and you’re all of a sudden a legitimate military target. I have doubts Russia would shoot down a SpaceX satellite… but you never know.
We generally don’t expect US companies to actively participate in wars, especially a war that the US isn’t officially involved in.
I think Musk’s decision to offer Starlink access for free to Ukraine is an interesting one. On one hand, they get a bunch of good PR for helping out a country during an aggressive invasion - we’re talking hundreds of millions they essentially donated to Ukraine. On the other hand, any good PR they got has probably been canceled out by now. Which I think is ironic - no good deed goes unpunished.
However, I don’t think Musk helped just for good PR. I think he felt it was a good opportunity to show off the capacities of his system during a globally publicized war. And it seems like it has definitely met expectations - the Ukrainians have come to rely on the system. So other countries are taking notice. China and Russia are both developing similar systems.
So yeah, I’d probably do the same thing if I were him. He’s probably just following the advice of his advisors. I think Musk is scummy too. I don’t like him for a number of reasons, the prime being that it seems he’s putting all his eggs on fascists coming to power in the US.
But this specific news cycle I think is a psyop meant to discredit Musk. Which fuck it, I don’t care really. But I like to know the truth, not propaganda. If I dislike someone, I want to dislike them for actual reasons not lies told to me by a news headline.
Honestly, it’s just that journalists want to make Elon Musk look like the bad guy. And thank you so much for taking the time to write this out so that it is far more obvious what’s happening because it’s just so confusing what they’re saying
except Musk said none of these things did he? His response seemed to be in the other direction.