It’s kind of Corporations 101… They even dislike their employees and customers.
5 Likes
Meh, tho I loath the guy, I am kind of with Elon here. The Starlinks were gifted for defensive purposes, not offensive ones. There is a real danger to the Starlink network from the Russians if they deem it an offensive weapon. There would be some justification in them destroying the space based system? I would likewise expect GPS/GLONASS to be targeted in a real war between the USA and Russia, but those are national space assets, vs private space assets like Starlink. So Russia shooting down Starlink satellites would not be the same sort of diplomatic conflict escalation as destroying GPS satellites.
2 Likes
Is it offensive when you’re using it against invaders?
17 Likes
The real victim here… /s
10 Likes
If only someone would pay him to allow offensive uses for Ukraine.
6 Likes
2 Likes
The best form of defence is a strong offence.
He probably wants every member of the Ukrainian military to pay him $8/month to become a verified user.
9 Likes
So he can sell it to Putin for more.
8 Likes
He seems fine with offensive use of Twitter, so I don’t understand what his problem is
14 Likes
Musk is shocked to suddenly discover that Ukraine has been using the network for offensive purposes!
4 Likes
The Russians got their hooks in Trump because he made bad investments and needed massive amounts of cash
… and now Elon Musk has made bad investments and needs massive amounts of cash 
12 Likes
And now Putin has made a very bad investment and needs massive amounts of cash. 
12 Likes
According to Russia this whole war is act of aggression by the Ukrainians who had the gall to resist Mr. Putin’s armed occupation. Doesn’t make it true.
Until the Ukrainians actually start invading Russia in force then every action they take in the war is defensive rather than offensive.
14 Likes
You can dance around the semantics, but there is a reason why the West has been very reluctant to offer up certain kinds of offensive weapons.
And not clear what people would prefer of the following two choices: a) NO Starlink terminals or b) Starlink terminals with terms of use attached?
I think the former would be far worse for Ukraine.
I guess he should have been more specific in his original tweet.
3 Likes
This has been my biggest worry with Musk’s descent into… whatever he’s descended into.
I don’t particularly care what happens to Twitter, not being a user myself, but I’m very aware that Ukraine is making good use of Starlink, and I don’t want to see that fall apart.
7 Likes
Every US based company and all of their assets are considered fair game, now, as targets from Russian hackers, who may or may not have support from the Russian government. If it’s ever in their interest to destroy Starlink, they’ll do so, whether or not they have justification. No American or Western company is going to be considered a neutral party.
4 Likes
The U.S. has been reluctant to offer up weapons that might be used to carry out an invasion of Russia’s sovereign territory. If the United States provided a bunch of American fighter jets that ended up dropping American bombs on Russian cities then it would be a very ugly escalation that would be difficult to walk back from.
If SpaceX provided access to satellite data that ended up getting used to facilitate an invasion of Russia then they could just cut off access to the satellites at any time. So not really the same thing.
10 Likes
That said, concerns about Ukraine hitting targets inside Russia have to be weighed against the fact that Russia has declared a large swathe of Ukraine, including territory that Ukraine has liberated or never lost, to be sovereign Russian territory. Ukrainian soldiers are therefore fighting right now on land that Russia considers to be Russian.
Putin might or might not distinguish privately between real Russia and not really Russia, but he has made sure that Russian law doesn’t allow the government to make that distinction.
4 Likes
