The provision of thousands of Starlink communication devices over the past several months to Ukraine has helped them coordinate movements of their forces, target Russian assets and have proven essential to the Ukrainian war effort. The company providing them, Space X, owned by right-wing sociopath Elon Musk, is now saying that they can't afford to supply more or to maintain the ones already supplied for the remainder of the year and going forward, asking the Pentagon to foot the multi-million dollar bill:
"Documents obtained by CNN show that last month Musk’s SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service as it has. The letter also requested that the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months.
'We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,' SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in the September letter."
The timing of the proposal is suspect, after Musk had conversations with his fellow megalomaniac Russian war criminal and thug Vladimir Putin over a Russia-approved "peace" plan for Ukraine that Musk pushed and was widely criticized for, especially by Ukrainians. Musk was apparently offended by a Ukrainian diplomat's undiplomatic response to his Russia-friendly plan:
"Musk on Friday said that in asking the Pentagon to pick up the bill for Starlink in Ukraine, he was following the advice of a Ukrainian diplomat who responded to Musk’s Ukraine peace plan earlier this month, before the letter was sent to the Pentagon, with: “F*** off.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, responded earlier this month to Musk’s claimed peace plan for Russia’s Ukraine war by saying: “F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk.”
'We’re just following his recommendation,' Musk said on Friday, responding to a tweet that referenced CNN’s reporting and Melnyk’s comments, even though the letter SpaceX sent to the Pentagon was sent before the Twitter exchange." (our emphasis)
If Musk's extortion of the Pentagon fails, the entire Ukrainian war effort would suffer, literally taking away it's eyes from the battlefield. His companies are the beneficiaries of billions of dollars in government subsidies (and Musk is personally worth roughly $219 billion). Perhaps the Biden administration should consider trimming those subsidies and redirecting the money to Ukraine in order to purchase more Starlinks service.
BONUS:
So @elonmusk is whining about losing a lot of money on Starlinks for Ukraine.
— Melaniya Podolyak (@MelaniePodolyak) October 14, 2022
Meanwhile, may I present to you snippets of my bank statements.
Thousands of Ukrainians, paying his company monthly.
So the question is: did you really lose more money than you earned? pic.twitter.com/w8OX2EBiqf
Tell Musk to repay the billions in handouts the government has given him first.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 14, 2022
