When The New Yorker magazine journalist – and son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow – Ronan Farrow was working on an article about Elon Musk’s influence on the US State apparatus, especially in relation to the War of Ukraine, a spokesman for the Department of Defense of that country explained that “we will talk to you if Elon wants us to talk.”
That the US State unconditionally bends to the conditions of a businessman, no matter how rich he may be, is absolutely exceptional. But that’s the power the world’s richest man has thanks to his spaceflight company SpaceX. SpaceX is the only way NASA has to bring material, supplies and astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), and will continue to be so for at least another year, until the US space agency develops its own rockets.
But Musk’s power in Ukraine comes mostly from a division of SpaceX – a company that until this year never made money – called Starlink, which provides Internet connection directly by satellite. In March 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk offered Starlink to Ukraine for free, although details of the operation reveal that a portion of the costs were actually borne by American, British, Polish, and Czech taxpayers. The great advantage of Starlink is that it offers antennas that allow you to connect directly to the Internet through a network of 2,000 SpaceX satellites, without having to use the transmission towers that are usually the target of Russian attacks. This week, Apple has reached an agreement so that emergency calls from iPhones are carried out through Starlink.
But Starlink also gave Musk what he likes best: power. The Armed Forces of Ukraine became hostages of the businessman, since without Starlink they could not communicate. And the businessman has decided that he is going to be the one to authorize the Ukrainians to use the network, which means as much as approving their offensives.
The clearest example comes in Musk’s autobiography written by Walter Isaacson, former president of the Aspen Institute and author of other successful books about Silicon Valley figures (Steve Jobs) or historical figures (Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein). In a chapter of the book, published by the Washington Post, Isaacson recounts how exactly a year ago Musk closed Ukraine’s access to Starlink when he learned that Kiev was going to launch an attack with six underwater drones (UUVs). ) against the Russian fleet in the port of Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula, in the part of Ukraine that Moscow has occupied since 2014. Musk, according to Isaacson, “was in his typical Muskian hero-drama mode”, fearing that an attack on the Russian fleet will provoke a nuclear response from the Vladimir Putin regime. Yesterday, Thursday, Musk admitted on his social network
Musk’s decision allowed Putin to save his fleet, and withdraw it in an orderly manner to the port of Novorosissk, in Russia, where it has been since then, with decreasing activity. Last month, Ukrainian underwater drones knocked out the Russian landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak, which was being used to deliver supplies to regions of Ukraine still occupied by Russia, and a tanker. In April he had carried out an attack with the same weapons against Sevastopol, apparently without success.
The New Yorker also reveals that Musk interrupted Starlink service at the end of last year to stop the Ukrainian offensive in the south, probably in the Kherson region. The result was that kyiv’s military plans were dismantled, and the attack could not be carried out.
Musk has gone from supporting Ukraine to sympathizing with Vladimir Putin. The businessman has proposed in In June 2022 he also suddenly decided to cancel all Starlink service to Ukraine, claiming that it cost the company 400 million dollars (373 million euros) annually, an amount that he, with a net worth of 215 billion euros, seems not to have. can afford. Ultimately, Starlink and the Department of Defense reached an agreement on the costs of the operation. Companies like Microsoft provide aid to Ukraine for free.
In general, Musk has aligned himself more and more with Vladimir Putin’s theses, as have some of his billionaire friends from Silicon Valley, such as investor David Sacks, a prominent defender of the invasion. The owner of Tesla, Starlink and would declare a Marxist. Musk blamed his offspring’s decisions “on the Marxist indoctrination of universities.”