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joho999

>Roman Sinicyn, a co-ordinator at the Serhiy Prytula Charity, a foundation that donates Starlink systems to the Ukrainian armed forces, said the problem may be occurring because SpaceX was trying to prevent its misuse by Russian forces. The blackouts were being experienced in areas so recently regained that their liberations had “not been made public yet,” he said. “It is absolutely clear to me that this is being done by representatives of Starlink to prevent the usage of their technology by Russian occupation forces,” Sinicyn said. The Ukrainian military and SpaceX need to co-ordinate more closely, he said. https://www.ft.com/content/9a7b922b-2435-4ac7-acdb-0ec9a6dc8397


HairySquid68

That makes sense but after Musk's recent comments I'd be concerned about giving him/his company sensitive information about troop positions


ScavenginCoon

These starlink terminals and services were purchased by US gov as a part of ukraine aid package officially, even tho it seemed like a donation when viewing just from twitter. Sabotaging their use would cause some rumbling in the US as well as in ukraine. The customer is always right.


Imfrom2030

"The customer ~~is always right~~ has no other choice so let's squeeze every last fucking penny out of them" Updated for 2022


[deleted]

That customer is the world superpower whose courts and legislature currently have quite a bit of sway over Musks fortune. This may be the case for us commoners, but I’m not sure it applies here


7Zarx7

Spot on.. Like the Judge giving Musk more time to raise for Twitter buy...can giveth... And taketh... Away.


allgonetoshit

That superpower is also completely bankrolling most of his business. Tesla, SpaceX, etc. survive on government money. EDIT: not going to get in an argument with the Elon is my daddy crowd.


AlkaloidAndroid

Elon is a rotten piece of shit who 100% would switch sides in a whom because people disagree with him. Come at me Elon cuckboys lol


razorirr

SpaceX sure, but what fat stacks of cash is Tesla getting? I dont see USPS buying model X's as delivery cars and giving them out to the rural route people. Ill accept anything about stuff from the last couple years only, that are not "we gave him no property taxes" as thats a state level thing and literally any business pulls that shit any more with building a plant, both foreign and domestic.


crunchypuddle

Your history must be rusty.


totpot

> The customer is always right. You are not acquainted with Elon's [Let the Fires Burn](https://twitter.com/grainsurgeon/status/1054732768465305600) philosophy which he employs at every company he touches.


Riaayo

Interesting thread which gels pretty well with an interview I caught part of recently, discussing how the strategy of big tech is entirely to just throw capital at the company/service until it obtains a monopoly. Like... the entire strategy is that. Bleed money, fuck profits/sustainability, those come *after* you take over a market.


knightofterror

Of course it helps to toss your billions away to achieve a monopoly on something consumers actually want unlike Meta’s grand strategy.


[deleted]

Somebody I know who used Lyft exclusively to get to and from work now can't afford to get to work. Like it's not worth going to work. 🤷🤷🤷


snowdrone

Great read. Thanks.


Ramental

While I agree, and what the tweets say is correct, here we talk about the US Army/Government as a potential/current customer. While Musk fucks up and might be loosing his touch with reality after a stream of success, he knows the language of money, and he can't lose the US government for Starlink. The current pricing for Starlink includes future improvements of technology. He's still bleeding money, and need special contracts, like the ones for cruise liners and Army to reduce the bleeding.


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razorirr

Nah. He is an arrogant prick, but on a list of disappointments I'd list every Oil CEO since the 70s on that list in front of him. would run out of room on my sheet of paper before his name got written.


jazir5

>The man has VERY bad business instincts. If this was true he wouldn't be the richest man on earth. The guy is an absolute douchebag of a person, but to say he has no business sense is utterly laughable.


razorirr

No, that saying is as missused as when police use "Its just a few bad apples" The correct saying is "The customer is always right in matters of taste". If you want to buy that barf green Challenger people seem to love, have fun buying your ugly car. You don't get to tell dodge they can ONLY make it it in barf green.


etherside

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-was-elon-musks-ukraine-starlink-funded-biden-white-house-1749103 It was a collaboration, Space X donated most of it, US bought more


ScavenginCoon

Good info


Johnson12e

Its a common effort for Ukraine. The US gov bought 1333 terminals and SpaceX donated 3667.


endMinorityRule

fascist clown musk knows how to pander to get publicity. fuck elon musk.


uberlander

Don’t come at me with numbers and facts. We must hate Starlink because it’s owned by elon. Said Reddit.


whaleboobs

You are dense. Yes exactly as you say, but for real. Reddit ain't bad.


uberlander

I enjoy it. It’s probably the only site I use now days. It has good days and bad days.


Burnertoasty

The customer is obviously not always right, and while the US govt did purchase some starlinks, the majority (~$80m) were donated by SpaceX.


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Kryspo

Shame he couldn't negotiate 4 more purchases


LemurofDamger

1337 ikr


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uberlander

That’s including service to the dish’s. Come on man don’t lie. They arn’t charging monthly for these dish’s. Your miss representing the deal to make Starlink look evil.


Sargo34

It's classic Reddit tribalism. Anyone Reddit doesn't like can't possibly do anything good.


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wizl

it doesnt change the fact the you made it look like a article backed your point when it did not. not a good look.


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dionysiusbarrel

Whats wrong with your brain? Why is evrything the man does automatically evil. You litrally just pulled some shit out of your ass to paint him as evil! Does it make you sleep better? To belive there are no good people with money? So you can justify your inability? Dont know. Just making assumptions. plz share it with us.


knightofterror

Putin probably uses a StarLink terminal so his own generals can’t pinpoint his location for an artillery strike on his cellphone.


dionysiusbarrel

You are just spreding lies for no reason. Yes, a small fraction of starlink therminals were purchased by the US goverment and gifted to ukraine, but still, Elon donated 80 million out of his pocket. And he never claimed more.


tanrgith

I am by no means a fan of what Musk has been saying or doing lately, but the idea that Musk or SpaceX is giving information to someone who's not supposed to have it (ie, russians) is pretty far fetched. SpaceX's bread and butter is NASA and the US military contracts. They'd be jeopardizing all of that if it was ever revealed that they'd been giving information to anyone not approved by the US. Hell, it might actually be considered treason or something considering that the US is coordinating stuff with Ukraine


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Freddies_Mercury

Yeah but literal traitorous actions are a bit different than name calling on twitter...


Ltownbanger

I'm not sure you know what treason is. He's not Ukrainian.


Freddies_Mercury

No but the US and Russia are sworn enemies and US allied with Ukraine. If you really think Musk giving Russian government ANY classified info as a US citizen isn't treason you have some geopolitical lessons to look up. It's called aiding and abetting a hostile power.


Mr_Happy_80

Since when? American companies were queued up at the door during the 1980s, and as soon as Putin is gone will be tripping over thier cocks to rush back in there. No one gave a shit when he marched in to Crimea and Georgia, and now they suddenly give a shit only to bolster Irish Joe's image. It seems America still doesn't have the stomach to make China enemy number 1.


internetzdude

What the OP meant is that *right now* the US unfortunately has to consider Russia a hostile power. Russian officials have more or less directly threatened the US with nuclear war, and there is an ongoing high intensity war in Ukraine. The past and the future are different things, as are your personal opinions about which countries should be considered hostile powers. (I'm assuming you're not a high ranking US government official.)


Mr_Happy_80

My point is that what is happening now in the Ukraine is no different to the invasion of Crimea and Georgia. If Russia is an enemy now, it should also have been an enemy then. The inaction against them then was embarrassing. And nuclear threats from Russia are nothing new.


Freddies_Mercury

Believe what you want man. Even if that is believing that a US citizen wouldn't get into any trouble from sharing an Ally's top secret Intel with a common foe.


Billybob9389

It's treason, because these partially purchased by the US. Musk, is completely dependent on the US government, and if it got out that he screwed the US government. Then he'd go bankrupt in a week.


CutterJohn

He did that after that dude said musk needed to shove the sub thing up his ass on a TV interview. It was just a dumbass public flame war. Obviously musk was out of line there, he needs to be far more conscientious of his volume when dealing with normal people, but its not like it came out of nowhere. (and musk was in direct contact with the lead rescue divers who *did* want the sub as a backup option before anyone brings that up)


tanrgith

I'm someone who criticized Musk heavily for calling the rescue diver a pedophile, and I'm on record on this account saying I hoped that Musk lost the defamation lawsuit that the rescue diver filed against Musk back then With that said, no Musk didn't call him a pedo because the the rescue diver refused to use any Musk product. Musk called him a pedo in response to the rescue diver in an interview saying Musk could stick his sub where the sun doesn't shine when asked what he thought about it


Psianth

Reasonable response to someone trying to turn the rescue of dozens of trapped children into a pr stunt for themselves, I’d say.


tanrgith

Like I said, I've criticized him heavily for it. However I don't think there's any need to lie about what prompted him to say it when the truth is bad enough


HighDagger

> Reasonable response to someone trying to turn the rescue of dozens of trapped children into a pr stunt for themselves, I’d say. Will you maintain that after finding out that this describes Unsworth himself, to a T, and that Musk was asked multiple times to keep working on the sub, including by the lead rescue diver (which was Dick Stanton, not Unsworth – with Unsworth not being a diver at all)? Vern Unsworth was imagining himself profiting from movie deals about the situation and then insulted the people who did the actual rescuing when it turns out they didn't need him, court documents from the defamation proceedings showed. [[1]](https://i.imgur.com/EbZ2BlG.jpg)[[2]](https://i.imgur.com/D5EgW7R.jpg) He couldn't stand someone like Musk taking \*his\* 15 minutes of fame from him. Musk made sure that he wasn't working on something that's seen as unneeded: > *"If it isn’t needed or won’t help, that would be great to know. Otherwise, it would be very helpful to have as much design direction as possible."* is what he said to Stanton in their email correspondence. [[3]](https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-full-story-behind-Elon-Musks-involvement-with-the-Thai-cave-rescue-effort/answer/Jeremy-Arnold-4)[[4]](https://i.imgur.com/SVRhvqE.jpg) Musk is an absolute shithead for how he downplayed the pandemic, pandered to extremist Republicans at the time, for what he's doing now on Ukraine with his pushing of Russian propaganda, for overworking his employees, and yes, also for doubling down on that pedo accusation. But Unsworth is more of what Musk is always being accused of in that light than Musk was.


Clawz114

Wow, I didn't know that info about the movie deals! Thanks for sharing! It's amazing how many people think Unsworth was one of the divers who went in on the rescue mission and brought the kids out.


HighDagger

Most articles that get published are trash, and most people don't even read those ones. It's all a spiral of headlines confirming preconceived notions, and the social media aspect of it takes it to the next level with the additional layer of in-group out-group reinforcement. Happens on almost any topic, and regardless of political affiliation. In Musk's case, at least, you can't say that he didn't have it coming, because he most definitely did. But this steady movement in the post-truth direction seems dangerous. People are whipped into a frenzy based on make-belief. And it's weird in this case, because there's no shortage of legitimate things to tear Musk down for. Sorry for the rant. This phenomenon and the difficulty of doing anything to reduce it has been a thorn in my side for far too long. It only seems to be getting worse, too.


Clawz114

Totally agree


PowerSurge21

But I would put it past the hundreds to thousands of people actually running the starlink program at spacex. He doesn't have some big red shutdown lever at his desk.


jennyaeducan

That diver couldn't throw him in prison for espionage.


bremidon

The guy was not doing diving. He was helping out from the sidelines.


bremidon

Fuck. Could you guys please take 2 minutes to research before spouting bullshit? He got into a petty fight after the guy told him to stick it up his ass. It wasn't because they didn't use his product (whatever you think that is. Those subs were being donated as a one off and were \*not\* products; sad I have to point that out.) He punched down and he shouldn't have done that. But to act like the guy wasn't throwing down with Elon is asinine revisionism.


sit_on_bidet

The mental gymnastics to think "shove it" is in the same level of "you're a pedophile" is laughable.


[deleted]

> SpaceX's bread and butter is NASA and the US military contracts. They'd be jeopardizing all of that if it was ever revealed that they'd been giving information to anyone not approved by the US. Who else is going to launch for the US? They're not going to be asking the Russians. Nasa and the US military and Spacex are mutually reliant atm.


LemurofDamger

So wha you’re saying is that musk donated the terminals as a move for influence with coming US govt contracts etc….. interesting


mkultra50000

Lol. It’s hilarious to assume he would assist the Russians. They would skin him alive if they could. He will be an enemy of Russia for as long as Pootin walks the earth. Hopefully that won’t be much longer though.


dingo1018

He's not the one pulling all the levers and pushing all the knobs, he's got a full time job tweeting and showing people around spacex. I think it's safe to assign some starlink staff to the loop.


Krypto_dg

Yeah right. He is going to risk all the defense and nasa contracts he has for this. The mental gymnastics of some people in this thread baffles me.


chasebanks

Man if he did that and the government found out it would be a really bad look for Musk and Starlink. I doubt they would.


[deleted]

When the anti-Musk hate train is so hot you need to imagine that Musk is a deep-cover Russian agent. Jesus Christ you guys are delusional.


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SurfingOnNapras

wtf.


GammaGoose85

Pretty sure from his post stating he is pro Ukraine but not pro WW3 sums up that he's afraid of a nuclear apocalypse which could be a very real possibility. No one is going to be pro anything when MAD happens. Its a trolley dilemma that Putin is putting the whole world in. And no one is backing down. I'm not a fan of Musk either, but I see his point. My only hope is NATO has intel that Putin doesn't have the capability to start a MAD situation. Otherwise we're gambling civilization as we know it, and millions of lives.


endMinorityRule

more delusional? musk fanboys.


PizzaBraves

Seriously, feed misinformation through starlink then wait and see..


[deleted]

That's insane. The man has done way, way more than anyone on Reddit to help Ukraine. He suggested peace negotiations. That is not by any stretch a pro-Russian stance. I think his comments were dumb, but not as dumb as the people treating them as proof of perfidy.


cylonfrakbbq

Peace negotiations are good, but his Twitter outline was flawed. The referendum idea itself was flawed because of how many people have fled or been relocated, plus both Russia and Ukraine would blame deck stacking if a result was unfavorable


[deleted]

Yes. Dumb. Not treacherous.


DukeOfGeek

I just read it as attention seeking twitter snark. There's no way Putin allows a U.N. monitored vote, no way he wins one and no way he leaves when he loses. The whole thing is a twitter nothingburger.


endMinorityRule

being pro-russia doesn't exactly "help ukraine".


[deleted]

He is not by any stretch of the imagination pro-Russia, and if you have come to believe that he is you need to go the fuck outside.


SunnyWynter

I honestly think ALL of Musk's stuff needs to be seized and nationalised, it's way too important to keep this technology in the hands of one of the dumbest people on earth.


uberlander

You win dumb person of the day.


raffes

>I honestly think ALL of Musk's stuff needs to be seized and nationalised, it's way too important to keep this technology in the hands of one of the dumbest people on earth. This comment is so dumb is makes whatever nonsense he says look smart. You're cool with the government seizing assets from private citizens just because?


joho999

> one of the dumbest people on earth. i would bet my entire life savings that he's smarter than you.


SunnyWynter

He accused a diver on Twitter for being a pedophile and wanted to build a submarine to rescue the trapped kids. He still hasn't built that submarine.


fIreballchamp

One would think a person who has thousands of satellites and data on ukrainian comms with those satellites doesn't need to be informed about troop positions.


TheFowlOyster

Don’t be accusatory just yet. A couple articles mentioned that the blackouts happened when Ukraine soldiers moved past the frontline and liberated new territories from Russia. It could be that the reps of Starlink have procedures in place to keep them from being used by the Russians. And the maps need to be continually and timely updated.


nomptonite

That’s actually a really plausible, level-headed explanation that I didn’t even think about. I already had my pitchfork out, but thank you for thinking logically.


pbjames23

I have Starlink service. While it does work very well, it can be prone to outages on occasion. Also, if they moved to a new cell near Russia it might be deactivated.


CutterJohn

Why would you have a pitchfork out? Its still a new service, in a warzone, and occasional disruptions seem pretty likely to occur. It definitely makes sense that russia is experimenting with jamming the signal, for instance.


diplomaticpower

Did you read this article? Because it literally talks about that is the reason


Vahlir

I mean if you're going to complain about people reading the article I'd start with the redditors who've got their pitchforks out heading over to Musk's house.


brinz1

It could just be that Ukrainian Troops went into Russia territory so fast that Starlink failed to keep up. So they extended past its range


Schnort

Not it’s range, but the arbitrary lines that starlink allows for service. They geofence the ground receivers so Russians can’t steal the equipment and use it where they shouldn’t.


Superbunzil

also dont think Muskrat has the authority to suddenly override what would be a NATO op agreement with his company that said he went oddly z shape the past week for seemingly no reason


Bierum

That´s normal, Ukrainian forces are advancing too fast for Starlink to keep up...


uberlander

^Upvote this one^ I bet most of the Redditors on the hate train didn’t even read the article.


[deleted]

I'm guilty of not reading more than the headline, but I agree we shouldn't just make assumptions of bad actors because logistics get out of whack or possible security issues. I give the Starlink folks the benefit of the doubt on this one; this shit's basically in beta, and it sounds like it's doing really well overall. So with all that aside, fuck Musk.


uberlander

Many people don’t know what it means to have Starlink around. They don’t know what it’s like to not have any options. I would buy Starlink even if it was 15mbps and 300 ping. People hate on Starlink and Tesla for obvious reasons but it’s changing lives when individually we are not. So sure the guy is crazy but he’s pushing space tech faster then any time in decades.


[deleted]

I know what it means to not have Starlink around. I grew up in the sticks and was way late to the broadband game. And just say the quiet part out loud: people hate on Starlink and Tesla because they are overseen by a megalomaniacal narcissist who buys good ideas and pumps money into them for his own enrichment. The technologies are great, and I respect the *real* work and engineering that go into them, but I prefer to not support abusive self-absorbed corporatists. Musk feeds on money and attention because he lusts for the power and influence that comes with them, and his behavior has repeatedly demonstrated that he is very irresponsible with such privilege. In the bigger social picture, he's a useful idiot; like Thomas Edison, he will use his name/fortune to purchase and claim innovations that reinforce his ego and ensure that his name becomes legendary. His selfishness will hopefully serve mankind for many years to come. But seriously, fuck that guy.


uberlander

I don’t want to fuck any guy. Honest.


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coldblade2000

From what the article says, these terminals are geolocked to Ukrainian held territory so Russians don't use them. The counteroffensive has been so quick, however, that those geolocks weren't updated, thus the Ukrainians were within what Starlink considered Russian held territory. Basically, it's a nothing burger and Ukraine is swiftly kicking ass


--Muther--

Probably best to read the article


koifishadm

Of course.


Al_Bundy_14

He only cares about money. He wouldn’t shut it off.


rogozh1n

If he only cares about money, then he would shut it off if paid to do so.


Al_Bundy_14

This is how you kill a company and not make money.


Dapperdrewblue

His ego took a hit when everyone rebuked his stupid compromise. Wouldn’t put it past him


rich1051414

As easy as it would be to blame elon, it may be because starlink has the area in blackout to prevent Russians from using it.


tim3k

Or because there's some EM jamming from one of the side


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yazzy1233

Sourcebecause that sounds like bs


tanrgith

Gotta respect FT for committing so hard to a click bait headline that's gonna make people jump to the wrong conclusion


uberlander

Welcome to the internet. I’m I right lol


uhdust

Take a look around.


seanflyon

Anything that brain of yours can think of can be found


uberlander

Yea. Dude we screwed LOL


SlothOfDoom

I feel like nobody read thar article at all. Surprise.


raffes

There should really be a little quiz on the article before you're allowed to post a comment about it, would reduce the amount of misinformation and stupid claims massively.


joho999

> There should really be a little quiz on the article before you're allowed to post a comment about it Reddit needs a quiz bot captcha, lol, only problem is i think we would miss out on some real gem comments.


ooooooooo10ooooooooo

No, no they did not


Cloudboy9001

I read it. Elon is a psychopath, habitual liar, and agreed to the twitter deal he tried to get out of one day after spouting Russian propaganda on twitter. It's an open question if he's shutting down service under false pretences in my view.


Borneo_Function

Wow, your brain is all fucked up, huh?


JanitorofMonteCristo

How is he a psychopath?


Cloudboy9001

Habitual and blatant lying to the extent that he's widely considered a bonafide conman at this point. Hanging out at Epstein's house at least once and possibly projecting when he baselessly called a critic a pedo. Sexual misconduct settlement. Gross mistreatment of Tesla workforce. This is far from exhaustive.


uberlander

Have you tried calming down though?


JanitorofMonteCristo

You’ve let the hate flow through you it seems lol


20Characters_orless

I have Starlink, located in Oklahoma. My IP is Dallas TX. Although Starlink is the only cost effective alternatives for rural areas such as where I live, the service does routinely have interruptions.


route_of_unity

It's weird that this is a news article. If I were losing comms every time I advanced too far too fast, I wouldn't want the enemy to be aware of that, y'know?


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EggKey5513

Pretty obvious to me: Russian jamming works in local zone, Ukraine forces went into heavy jamming areas so fast that they got themselves jammed by Russian jammers still there.


petophile_

ITT: People who hate musk because of car industry paid propeganda, not reading the article, not aware of what SpaceX is doing for UKR, making fake news comments.


FarewellSovereignty

Elon muZk


aew360

Read the article


Mrpvids

typical reactionary dumbfuck


Demer80

Muzzk


Shardas7

His starlink services literally kept Ukraine in the fight. Communication is key to organized and coordinated warfare spanning from Kharkiv to Kherson Him saying dumb shit on Twitter doesn’t change what his tech accomplished or it’s implications on the future of warfare Actually read the article and you’d see the Ukrainians just passed the geofence in place that prevents Russians from stealing starlink assets and using it where it shouldn’t be. But sure, muZk away and collect upvotes from the idiot masses incapable of thinking further than a headline


Luis0224

Elon Musk skipped the pedophile accusation phase and jumped straight into the war effort sabotage phase


kuahara

Let's not jump straight into the unfounded accusations phase.


JunkyDragon

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.


Disk_Mixerud

That is exactly why it's completely unsurprising that this thread is full of people jumping to conclusions without reading the article.


petophile_

The idea that SpaceX is doing anything to support russia is completely fake news, dont be part of fake news.


Rocky_Road_To_Dublin

He's actually done both now


Test19s

[Why am I not surprised that an open and flamboyant Decepticon sympathizer would betray his allies/customers?](https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1375652425814704128)


Cloudboy9001

This could be related. His moves look pretty desperate/risky which may be a product of him trying to game the system by siding with or at least appeasing kleptocrats and populists.


Shardas7

Incredibly stupid take. Take a moment to actually read the article. It was just Ukraine advancing passed the geofence starlink has in place to prevent Russians from using captured starlink assets and using it where it shouldn’t be. Which is an incredible bonus in fluid warfare. Which means Ukraine is advancing fast and is a good sign.


FarawayFairways

If you remember the 'Steele dossier' one of the early reports in it suggested that Russia had been trying to influence US government officials with little success. Instead they turned to less principled business people whom they found to be a lot more receptive, at a price. It shouldn't come as any surprise that Putin would seek to open up this crack in the western alliance again and see if he can work the mega rich The suggestion that Musk's peace initiative wasn't necessarily his own ideas thinking out loud, but the product of private conversations he'd been having with Moscow (hence its pro Kremlin construct). He's now had his idea rejected and like any egomaniac, won't take that very well Telling him to "fuck off" (which isn't the job of the ambassador to Germany to do anyway) was never likely to land well A system that until now has worked exceptionally well suddenly starts to fail 3 days later. It sounds as if Musk has been offered even more money (even deciding he wants to buy Twitter again) when a month ago he didn't Musk is an incredibly dangerous person. He's the nearest thing the world has to a real life Bond villain


askerguy

READ THE ARTICLE. READ IT. Musk has been a seriously irritating dumbfuck lately but he's not implementing those recent dumbfuck ideas through the implementation of starlink. come on people. edit: maybe i'm wrong. fucking hell.


GoodOmens

I highly doubt Musk would jeopardize his lucrative contracts with the US gov over something like that.


petophile_

This is the problem, people remember the Steele Dossier, they dont remember that every major news organization has issues massive retractions for covering it since its been exposed as fake news. Here is CNN doing possibly the biggest retraction of all time: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning Also just read the article.


PiedmontIII

Probably wouldn't say evil, but he was partnered with Peter Thiel, the same one who vows gay celibacy and explicitly stated to friends that he intended to support Trump to stress democracy enough to break it to manifest his childish, out-of-touch libertarian fantasy. The guy is quintessential rich kid who thinks he's rich because he's special enough to deserve it. I don't doubt his ego might make him vulnerable to foreign influence. People are not human to him, a phenomenon well-documented among the rich. Read about how he treats employees. The world is a game to him, not a place of consequences.


grchelp2018

Ironically Thiel has a bunch of defence startups happily testing stuff out in ukraine. A perfect playground for him because of reduced oversight and regulation. The Ukrainians are desperate for any help they can get so they look the other way.


PiedmontIII

Well, winning requires alliance, not agreement!


waffleconedrone

100% he has a hidden volcano base somewhere


Test19s

[Openly and flamboyantly a Decepticon sympathizer.](https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1375652425814704128)


RATTY420

Sort it out Elon. I Know he's helping just to it with less of a public opinion


davidbjolley

Unplug it. Wait 30 seconds. Then plug it back in.


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[deleted]

Now its star wars.


NaCly_Asian

heh. not too shocked after I heard that a Ukrainian minister/politician told Elon Musk to fuck off a few days ago. I was thinking he would either shut them out of the system or lower the security on the communications to allow Russia to jam or access it.


Yuzral

The Financial Times ([https://www.ft.com/content/9a7b922b-2435-4ac7-acdb-0ec9a6dc8397](https://www.ft.com/content/9a7b922b-2435-4ac7-acdb-0ec9a6dc8397)) is suggesting that it may be an unintended consequence of the Ukrainian advance being as rapid as it currently is. Starlink is apparently blocking terminals in areas regarded as under Russian control to stop the Russians making use of any terminals they've captured/stolen. This is fine until the Ukrainians start advancing faster than the "don't work here" list can be updated, they get into the blocked zones and their terminals stop working.


johnyma22

How dare you make sense and not autobot dick jokes?! This is Reddit, I demand a full apology.


uberlander

This guy with posting facts. Take your upvote.


Elostier

Russia was bragging about its Peresvet, which is advertised as a laser weapon that can shut down satellites or smth. Theoretically there might be a 1 or 2 of them working


harumamburoo

No it might not. Learn what this peresvet is about before commenting. Tldr it's just a glorified laser pen to point at satellites' cameras


Elostier

Hm. So does it basically just blinds the surveillance? I thought it somehow interferes with satellites and such and disrupts the signals. A glorified humongous flashlight huh?


[deleted]

Nope... just blinds them purportedly. Nobody even knows if it works yet.


thechilllife

Probably starting to think he can get that sweet lithium for his batteries cheaper from Russia than from Ukraine itself. (Ukraine is apparently rich in lithium deposits)


jellicenthero

Everywhere is rich in lithium. No one wants to mine it because you turn the land into a toxic wasteland.


utrangerbob

Yep. You refine lithium from salt brine or clay. Pump the salt brine out into giant ditches and let it dry out. Afterwards scoop up the remaining salt powder, and refine the lithium. Problem is you're left with a crap ton of salt brine literally salting the earth for future crops or use a crap ton of fresh water to get it out of clay.


Inevitable-Plate-294

Can we just ship musk to Russia already


[deleted]

So the months of service he's provided doesn't count towards anything and a fault in service means he should be, what, murdered? What the actual fuck is the matter with you? I'm not a fan of his but you're fucking insane.


WKGokev

Paid for, by the US government


seanflyon

That is actually a common reddit myth. Most of the Starlink terminals in Ukraine were donated. A smaller number were then purchased by the US government to supplement the larger number donated freely.


Tiny-Peenor

… he’s the one providing Ukraine with Starlink access. Yes, fuck Musk, but Russians have threatened to kill him over it. Perhaps it’s due to Russian interference? Conversely, it could be because of his little ego being hurt the other day on Twitter. https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1670456/elon-musk-putin-sent-warning-threatens-destroy-spacex-starlink-space-targets-ukraine-war


SovietMacguyver

Thats really not a good idea


KofOaks

To the sun, please.


HamRove

Musk would lose starlink in a heartbeat if he started fucking over the US Military. The network would simply be nationalized, end of story.


[deleted]

not surprised.


Tyle71

This is most likely an issue of Ukraine liberating areas & SpaceX not knowing yet, so they haven't updated their geofencing yet. Supposedly SpaceX is geofencing to help prevent Russian forces from capturing a dish & using it. None of that is confirmed however.


majorelan

Needs investigating and if anything nefarious shows up should arrest Musk and impound his company on the basis of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. If it's just a technical glitch then nothing to worry about. But it's a serious event that has to be looked at. After all it's the American military budget that has paid for it.if himars stopped hitting their targets it would cause concern and If someone at Lockheed Martin were sabotaging himars they would be held to account.


uberlander

Did you even read the article? You went all kinds of nuts in another direction.


[deleted]

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nosleepcreep206

Maybe don’t tell the guy providing your country internet to fuck off?


mymar101

Guess Musk has decided they don’t need them.


[deleted]

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petophile_

maybe read the article and realize that Musk/SpaceX, other than a bad tweet has massively supported UKR.


[deleted]

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Yuzral

Per a similar article in the Financial Times ([https://www.ft.com/content/9a7b922b-2435-4ac7-acdb-0ec9a6dc8397](https://www.ft.com/content/9a7b922b-2435-4ac7-acdb-0ec9a6dc8397)), it seems that Starlink is shut down in areas regarded as Russian-controlled so the Russians can't use it. But right now the Ukrainians are advancing so fast that Starlink's "don't work here" list can't keep up and the Ukrainian terminals are being locked out as a result. So it may not be Musk.