Pentagon says it’s paying for Elon Musk’s Starlink internet in Ukraine
“Satellite communications constitute a critical layer in Ukraine’s over-all communications network and the department contracts with Starlink for solutions of this kind,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “However, for operational protection good reasons and owing to the important nature of these programs — we do not have more facts with regards to distinct capabilities, contracts or associates to supply at this time.”
While conditions of the offer continue to be a secret, it would look to be a windfall for Musk, whose $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last yr has been a colossal bust so significantly. A Fidelity mutual fund estimated in a report produced this 7 days that the social media corporation might have dropped two-thirds of its price.
Officers with SpaceX did not reply to an e-mail requesting remark about the agreement, which was very first described by Bloomberg News. Musk did not answer to issues when contacted by means of Twitter.
Due to the fact Russia’s whole-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Starlink has turn into a lifeline for its federal government, armed forces and other essential operations such as hospitals. Musk, just one of the world’s richest men and women, presented countless numbers of Starlink terminals, but as the conflict has endured, he has expressed issue about the technologies becoming utilized for military applications.
“We’re hoping hard to do the proper issue, exactly where the ‘right thing’ is an extremely complicated ethical issue,” Musk wrote on Twitter in February. In October, Musk had prompt, also in a tweet, that SpaceX could not go on to cover the price of Starlink in Ukraine. His musings sparked an uproar.
“SpaceX is not asking to recoup past fees, but also are unable to fund the current program indefinitely *and* mail quite a few thousand a lot more terminals that have info use up to 100X larger than usual households,” Musk wrote then, including, “This is unreasonable.”
A day later, Musk struck a various tone.
“The hell with it … even even though Starlink is even now losing revenue & other providers are finding billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just preserve funding Ukraine govt free,” he tweeted. Right after another person responded to his tweet with the saying “No excellent deed goes unpunished,” Musk responded: “Even so, we really should nonetheless do good deeds.”
SpaceX had beforehand cast the provision of terminals as a humanitarian gesture, and has made available Starlink to other nations after disasters. But the U.S. Agency for International Improvement also has purchased some Starlink products and paid to send out it to Ukraine, according to files formerly acquired by The Washington Article.
