And that is why Starlink mihht not be the dirst choice for government services.
Man, Musk really seems like a pathtic, ordered at Wish, version of a Bond vilain. At least those had no problem with potential consequences of their actions.
Rant over, so in all seriousness. That call was not his to make, not even close. It was a military decision by Ukraine, and one be sure that included some consultation with NATO. If he wants to establish SpaceX as seriois defence, or heck even just government or critical infrstaructure provider, he cannot switch of services forbthese customers nased on whatever whim he has in the moment, this is not some folks Instagram account. If he doesn't want to support a war, sure, just don't sell to beligerents. If you do, your in, and you have mo say about what said beligerents do with your stuff. Seriously, while shocking it is not surprising. And I have mo idea why anybody ever believed Musk would be a reliable supplier for those things to begin with.
He hasn't been reliable at all for anything to be honest. The US government should just seize starlink at this point, covertly or no, for various reasons.
Ukraine asked Starlink to increase coverage so they could do an attack on Russian occupiers. It's not hard to see what this sort of coordination looks like. This is more than Ukraine using a service that happens to be there.
While I happen to agree with the goal of pushing Putin out of Ukraine, can I blame a private individual for not wanting to take that step.
Musk is a private individual, and Starlink is a private company. They are not in business to fight wars.
It’s likely this is a sign the US government needs to regulate Musk and StarLink more aggressively for national security reasons. While Musk is wealthy, the US government’s resources are effectively limitless.
Edit: To be clear, in this instance, it isn't "Elon Bad!" It's that no one person should be able to wield nation state power without all of the governance that goes with a nation state.
I don't think you get to claim to be a private individual when you're the richest man in the world running a (different) firm that is a defense contractor for US space operations. Maybe you should be able to, but I just don't think you can.
What's more puzzling is that he thought that he thought he could dabble in geopolitics and matters of war and come away cleanly.
> Ukraine asked Starlink to increase coverage so they could do an attack on Russian occupiers.
FTA: “Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to disable Starlink satellite communications near the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea last year to sabotage a planned Ukrainian drone strike”
I don’t think both of those can be the full truth, and am inclined to give Walter Isaacson’s claim (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/07/elon-musk...: “Allowing the use of Starlink for the attack, he concluded, could be a disaster for the world. So he secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast”) more value, but that’s a gut feeling, not one based on facts.
> Musk is a private individual, and Starlink is a private company. They are not in business to fight wars.
That’s true, but nevertheless, they can’t avoid being in a war. They can’t close their eyes and ignore that war. Even not doing anything is a choice.
Other subject: what would you do if you were one of those engineers being ordered to disable Starlink?
You obviously dont realise that human robots gravitate towards jobs which require having instructions barked at them by other human robots with slightly better fancy dress.
Basic training is not a training course for the the computer language Basic, but a form of psychological and physical human desensitization to get more reliable human robots that will put their life on the line in return for some shiny metal attached to a fancy ribbon.
Whilst the military has traditionally represented a form of paid Darwinism, there are times when others need to stop things from escalating, so I take my hat off to Musk for standing up to these fancy dressed human robots.
Man, Musk really seems like a pathtic, ordered at Wish, version of a Bond vilain. At least those had no problem with potential consequences of their actions.
Rant over, so in all seriousness. That call was not his to make, not even close. It was a military decision by Ukraine, and one be sure that included some consultation with NATO. If he wants to establish SpaceX as seriois defence, or heck even just government or critical infrstaructure provider, he cannot switch of services forbthese customers nased on whatever whim he has in the moment, this is not some folks Instagram account. If he doesn't want to support a war, sure, just don't sell to beligerents. If you do, your in, and you have mo say about what said beligerents do with your stuff. Seriously, while shocking it is not surprising. And I have mo idea why anybody ever believed Musk would be a reliable supplier for those things to begin with.