Democratic lawmakers are probing SpaceX over Russia’s reported use of Starlink in Ukraine, saying that recent developments raise questions about SpaceX’s “compliance with US sanctions and export controls.”
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk last month denied what he called “false news reports [that] claim that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals to Russia,” saying that, “to the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.” But Musk’s statement didn’t satisfy US Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who sent a letter to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell yesterday.
“Starlink is an invaluable resource for Ukrainians in their fight against Russia’s brutal and illegitimate invasion. It is alarming that Russia may be obtaining and using your technology to coordinate attacks against Ukrainian troops in illegally occupied regions in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, potentially in violation of US sanctions and export controls,” Raskin and Garcia wrote.
Musk has also stated that “Starlink satellites will not close the link in Russia.” However, the concerns raised by Rankin and Garcia are about whether Russia used the broadband service in Ukraine. Their letter said that Ukraine last month “released intercepted audio communications between Russian soldiers that indicated Russian forces had illegally deployed and activated Starlink terminals in certain Russian-occupied areas in Eastern Ukraine.”
How does the DOD find it acceptable that a corporation is actively profiting from providing infrastructure to the enemy.
Probably because they are not officially the enemy. Hopefully sanctions will be amended to fix this.
After explicitly denying the service to an ally.
More accurate TLDR of the article: He did explicitly deny it to an ally. Ukraine asked for it to be activated in Crimea and he said no.
Whether he should have or not is up to interpretation. He claimed that US sanctions didn’t allow it, but another time said he was preventing war. Why he gets to decide at all is ???.
He didn’t say he was preventing a war. Those are Isaacson’s words, not Elon’s. What Elon said is that enabling it would make SpaceX explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation. He also added that if the US government had reached out and told him to enable it he would have done so but they didn’t.
TL Actually read it, Yes.
I didn’t say he deactivated it.
I said he specifically declined to activate it for Ukraine when requested.
He makes no such qualms about Russia using his service.
The question in the title is: “Did Elon Musk Turn Off Starlink Access in Crimea To Disrupt Ukrainian Attack?”
The answer is no.
It’s a bit of a non-sequitur though, the context was denying service to an ally not cutting off existing service to Crimea. It’s like if someone asked “Have you ever shaken a baby” and you respond “I have never kicked this baby!”. Sure, it’s good that you haven’t kicked a baby, but that’s just not the question.
Why tf did you post that article if not to refute the assertion that he denied service? It doesn’t matter what the title of the article you posted is if it’s a total non-sequitur.
The vast majority of people are under the impression that Elon disabled Starlink there and when someone makes a comment like the one I replied to this is what they’re thinking about. The article I linked is there to educate these people. I’d be willing to bet that the person I was replying to was under this same impression aswell but obviously I can’t be sure about that. Only he knows.
That’s an interesting clarification. Never heard about it (and I’m guessing most other people didn’t either)
That’s how propaganda works.
Absolutely true facts can be published, but simply picking and choosing certain details to withhold completely changes the story.
So pretty much what the vast majority of main stream media news does every day.
careful being so media savvy. you are going to be accused of siding with putin and hamas soon.
In a shocking twist, it turns out the DOD is owned by the corporations.
3 defense contractors in a trenchcoat.
Who is profiting from this exactly? I don’t undestand why people keep spreading this disinformation when not a single single article, including the one above, makes no accusations of SpaceX being complicit in it in anyway. The only thing they’re being criticized for, or rather questioned about is wether they’re doing enough to track the terminals near the front lines and making sure they’re not being used by sanctioned parties.
If you actually read the article you’d know that selling Starlink to Russia already is against the sanctions. It does not work in Russia or in the occupied territories. This is why the drone assault on the Crimea failed aswell. Not because Musk disabled Starlink but because it wasn’t enabled in the first place.
Starlink. They sell more groundstations.
So your argument is that it can’t be because it is turned off for specific regions.- we cannot check if it might be available for Russian forces in these regions.
- the Russians use it so it must help them.
Starlink works near the front lines because otherwise Ukraine would not be able to use it either. However the front lines are constantly changing and you can’t expect anyone to be able to accurately track them at the resolution that would be required for SpaceX to make sure it immediately stops working once you move to the occupied side.
Oh no?! Requiring a multi billion dollar company that literally does rocket science, to actually take measures to not have the Russian military use their infra while invading another country. What a bizarre idea, no way this will be possible for these poor corporations.
Maybe stop acting as if a poor company needs protecting. Most large corporations need a firm boot up their ass. Companies owned and operated under space karen need two!
You do not have a clue about the efforts SpaceX is putting into trying to stop this from happening.
So? We can see the effects and conclude… not enough.
It is hilarious I’m getting downvoted for stating a multi-billion dollar company should assure a dictatorial regime should not be able to use their infra to commit warcrimes and invade another country.
Space Karen is a douche nozzle. He actively wants to remove worker protections to be able to exploit workers more, questions the need for NATO… worshipping the billionaire class is not going to help anyone except the billionaires.
Take over the NOC and see what’s going on, and start charging people with insurrection. They can GPS restrict every damn dish if they want to, there’s no excuse for this. They won’t let me move my dish half a mile without shutting it down, why is there a question here?
Nationalize SpaceX for national security.
