Elon Musk said he never responded to a request from Ukraine to use Starlink for a drone attack on a Russian fleet in the Black Sea, but he also never made any changes to the satellite internet network to thwart the attack.
Musk used a post on
CNN reported Thursday that Musk had secretly disabled Starlink to disrupt a sneak attack on the Russian Black Sea fleet.
Isaacson expanded on the billionaire’s decision, explaining that Musk did not alter the Starlink network in any way, but instead refused to increase its coverage.
“To clarify the Starlink issue: Ukrainians THOUGHT that coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not,” Isaacson said in a post on X.
“They asked Musk to enable his submarine with drones against the Russian fleet. Musk did not allow it because he thought, probably rightly, that it would provoke a major war.”
Elon Musk said he did not deactivate Starlink to thwart a Ukrainian attack on a Russian Black Sea fleet. Ukrainian Security Service
Musk retweeted his biographer’s explanation and thanked Isaacson for the clarification.
“The liability is significantly different if I refused to act on a request from Ukraine or if I made a deliberate change to Starlink to frustrate Ukraine,” Musk wrote.
“At no time did I or anyone at SpaceX promise coverage of Crimea. Additionally, our terms of service clearly prohibit Starlink from taking offensive military actions, as we are a civilian system, so again they were asking for something that was expressly prohibited.”
Musk said he did not alter the Starlink service, but rather refused to act on a request from Ukraine to use it to carry out a drone strike. REUTERS
Musk’s comments came after claims that he disabled Starlink to avoid the attack and criticism from Ukrainian officials.
“Sometimes a mistake is much more than a simple mistake,” Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday X.
“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military fleet (!) through #Starlink interference, @Elon Musk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians and children are being killed.”
Musk said he does not consider his company SpaceX to be “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and an escalation of the conflict.” NurPhoto via Getty Images
However, Musk defended his decision by saying that he does not want his company, SpaceX, to be “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and an escalation of the conflict.”
Isaacson’s biography of Musk goes on sale Tuesday.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn