Although his SpaceX is a big Pentagon contractor, billionaire Elon Musk has often stated that the Starlink satellite constellation it developed was always meant to serve civilian purposes.<\/p>\n
However, Musk and his service ended up being dragged into the military confrontation vortex in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
As Russian Federation forces were about to launch their \u2018Special Military Operation\u2019, they knocked out Kiev\u2019s communications systems.<\/p>\n
Musk has since started providing Ukraine with millions of dollars worth of SpaceX-made Starlink satellite terminals, which then became crucial to Ukraine\u2019s military operations.<\/p>\n
A new biography of the SpaceX-Tesla-Twitter\/X mogul, scheduled for release later in September, written by an author of acclaimed biographies of the likes of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, recalled a pivotal moment in the war, where Musk\u2019s non-intentional involvement with the war was taken to the limit.<\/p>\n
CNN<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n \u201cElon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company\u2019s 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\u2019s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled \u2018Elon Musk\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they \u2018lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly\u2019, Isaacson writes.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This decision was taken out of fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons \u2013 \u2018a fear driven home by Musk\u2019s conversations with senior Russian officials\u2019, according to Isaacson.<\/p>\n The episode highlights the unique position Musk found himself in as the war unfolded.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019How am I in this war?\u2019 Musk asks Isaacson. \u2018Starlink 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\u2019.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Musk spoke with Biden\u2019s adviser Jake Sullivan, General Mark Milley, and the Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov, in a bid to resolve his impasse.<\/p>\n \u201cMeanwhile, 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. \u2018I just want you\u2014the person who is changing the world through technology\u2014to know this\u2019, Fedorov told Musk.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n There was also the question of who would pay for the Starlink terminals. After spending tens of millions with the satellite equipment to Ukraine, the company told the Pentagon that they wouldn\u2019t continue to foot the bill for the satellite gear.<\/p>\n Although Musk was to reverse the course, tweeting \u2018the hell with it\u2026 we\u2019ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free\u2019, eventually Starlink was able to work out a deal with the US and European governments to pay for another 100,000 new satellite dishes to Ukraine.<\/p>\n Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, reacted to the CN piece:<\/p>\n\n Business Insider<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n \u201cIt has previously been reported \u2014 and admitted by SpaceX leadership \u2014 that steps have been taken to prevent Ukraine from using the Starlink system for certain attacks. Last fall, Ukrainian forces reported \u2018catastrophic<\/em>\u2018<\/em> outages in areas that had previously been occupied by Russia, suggesting the system had been deliberately deactivated there, possibly to deny Russian access (Musk, at the time, said information regarding Starlink\u2019s use on the battlefield was \u2018classified\u2019).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n personally denied a Ukrainian request to allow Starlink to be used for a maritime drone attack near Crimea,<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to Isaacson, Musk himself ordered Starlink engineers to deactivate the system along the coast of Crimea.<\/em><\/p>\n [\u2026] The system was \u2018never meant to be weaponized\u2019, [Starlink CEO Gwynne] Shotwell\u00a0said earlier this year, citing Ukraine\u2019s use of Starlink for drone reconnaissance and attacks. \u2018There are things that we can do to limit their ability to do that\u2019, she said. \u2018There are things that we can do, and have done\u2019.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Elon Musk has since clarified the CNN report, saying that the system was not turned on in the area, and that he rejected Ukraine\u2019s request to activate it due to concerns about a possible UAF attack against Russian fleet.<\/p>\n\n The post Biographer: Elon Musk Turned Off Starlink Network To Prevent a Ukrainian Attack on Crimea, Out of Fear of a Nuclear Retaliation by the Russians \u2013 Musk Clarifies the Report<\/a> appeared first on The Gateway Pundit<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although his SpaceX is a big Pentagon contractor, billionaire Elon Musk has often stated that the Starlink satellite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n