Elon Musk Denied Request to Turn On Starlink to Facilitate Ukrainian Drone Attack on Crimea [UPDATED]

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Sep. 07, 2023

UPDATE: Both Walter Isaacson and Elon Musk confirmed that Musk denied a Ukrainian government request to turn on additional Starlink coverage to facilitate a drone attack on Crimea.

"To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war," Isaacson clarified on Friday.

"Much appreciated, Walter," Musk responded. "The onus is meaningfully different if I refused to act upon a request from Ukraine vs. made a deliberate change to Starlink to thwart Ukraine."

"At no point did I or anyone at SpaceX promise coverage over Crimea," he continued. "Moreover, our terms of service clearly prohibit Starlink for offensive military action, as we are a civilian system, so they were again asking for something that was expressly prohibited. SpaceX is building Starshield for the US government, which is similar to, but much smaller than Starlink, as it will not have to handle millions of users. That system will be owned and controlled by the US government."


*** Original story follows ***

A new biography on Elon Musk claims that Musk "secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company's Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet," though Musk himself said he actually declined a request to turn additional satellites on.

From CNN, "CNN Exclusive: 'How am I in this war?': New Musk biography offers fresh details about the billionaire's Ukraine dilemma":
Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company's Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson's new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled "Elon Musk."

As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they "lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly," Isaacson writes.

Musk's decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk's conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson, whose new book is set to be released by Simon & Schuster on September 12.

Musk's concerns over a "mini-Pearl Harbor" as he put it, did not come to pass in Crimea. But the episode reveals the unique position Musk found himself in as the war in Ukraine unfolded. Whether intended or not, he had become a power broker US officials couldn't ignore.

The new book from Isaacson, the author of acclaimed biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, provides fresh insights into Musk and how his existential dread of sparking a wider war drove him to spurn Ukrainian requests for Starlink systems they could use to attack the Russians.

After Russia disrupted Ukraine's communications systems just before its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Musk agreed to provide Ukraine with millions of dollars of SpaceX-made Starlink satellite terminals, which became crucial to Ukraine's military operations. Even as cellular phone and internet networks had been destroyed, the Starlink terminals allowed Ukraine to fight and stay connected.

But once Ukraine began to use Starlink terminals for offensive attacks against Russia, Musk started to second-guess that decision.

"How am I in this war?" Musk asks Isaacson. "Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes."

Musk was soon on the phone with President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, and the Russian ambassador to the US to address anxieties from Washington, DC, to Moscow, writes Isaacson.

Meanwhile, Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, was pleading with Musk to restore connectivity for the submarine drones by telling Musk about their capabilities in a text message, according to Isaacson. "I just want you—the person who is changing the world through technology—to know this," Fedorov told Musk.

Musk, the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla and private space exploration firm SpaceX, replied that he was impressed with the design of the submarine drones but that he wouldn't turn satellite coverage back on for Crimea because Ukraine "is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat," according to Isaacson.
Musk did not respond to CNN's request for comment but did respond to the story on Twitter/X.

"The Starlink regions in question were not activated," Musk said. "SpaceX did not deactivate anything."


"Both sides should agree to a truce," Musk said. "Every day that passes, more Ukrainian and Russian youth die to gain and lose small pieces of land, with borders barely changing. This is not worth their lives."


"There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol," he said in a follow-up tweet. "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."



Ironically, the Ukrainian military (and by extension the war) is being kept alive entirely due to Starlink. If not for Starlink, Ukraine would have been forced to go to the negotiating table a long time ago.

That said, Musk still deserves credit for advocating for peace while the bloodthirsty neocons running our government are doing everything in their power to escalate the war.

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