Elon Musk appears to have backed down from his earlier plea to have the Pentagon pay for Starlink connectivity in Ukraine, and can proceed to fund the web satellites being utilized by the war-torn nation.
On Saturday, Musk despatched out a seemingly annoyed tweet saying, “The hell with it … though Starlink continues to be dropping cash & different corporations are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll simply hold funding Ukraine govt at no cost.”
SpaceX had reportedly requested the Pentagon to pay roughly $120 million for Ukraine’s use of its Starlink satellites for the remainder of the yr. The corporate additionally wished the U.S. authorities to step in and pay about $400 million for subsequent yr, in keeping with paperwork obtained by CNN. “We aren’t able to additional donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the prevailing terminals for an indefinite time period,” SpaceX’s director of presidency gross sales, Bryon Hargis, wrote in a letter to the Pentagon in September, in keeping with CNN.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, SpaceX despatched round 20,000 Starlink terminals to Kyiv to offer on-line entry to Ukrainian troopers and civilians. The world’s richest man has boasted about his firm’s efforts to assist hold Ukraine related. Nevertheless, 85% of the Starlink terminals despatched to Ukraine had been already absolutely or partially funded by authorities sources, in keeping with the paperwork obtained by CNN.
Earlier this month, Musk claimed on Twitter that the Starlink operation in Ukraine “has price SpaceX $80M & will exceed $100M by finish of yr.” In July, Ukraine’s Normal Valerii Zaluzhniy requested virtually 8,000 new Starlink terminals however SpaceX expressed concern about having the ability to present what was requested, in keeping with the paperwork seen by CNN.
Musk has additionally come underneath hearth just lately for suggesting a peace plan wherein Ukraine accepts Russia’s declare over a few of its territory with the intention to finish the warfare. The suggestion prompted Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, to inform Musk to “fuck off.” In response to the claims made concerning SpaceX not eager to pay for Starlink terminals in Ukraine, Musk tweeted, “We’re simply following [Melnyk’s] advice.”
It’s not clear what occurred to trigger Musk to backtrack on his alleged request to have the federal government pay for Starlink terminals in Ukraine, however the billionaire completed off his passive aggressive rant on Twitter by pivoting to a philanthropist persona. In response to a remark that learn, “No good deed goes unpunished,” Musk wrote, “Even so, we should always nonetheless do good deeds.”
