‘A cocktail of ignorance and a big ego’: A Ukrainian war official has slammed Elon Musk after he disrupted a stealth operation by cutting off Starlink
‘A cocktail of ignorance and a big ego’: A Ukrainian war official has slammed Elon Musk after he disrupted a stealth operation by cutting off Starlink
"And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?"
I’d like to see more substantial consequences for consciously and deliberately sabotaging a war operation using a service the pentagon paid him to provide.
If any of us did that we’d be behind bars
Buddy we wouldn't even make it to trial.
But he was slammed in a headline! There’s no way any other consequence could even be achievable.
/s
Don't worry, I'm sure our leaders are formulating a strongly worded condemnation of their own. One might even venture to suggest they could hold a hearing about it, or assign a task force to investigate! Canceling his government contracts or charging him with anything are obviously off the table, though.
Well, he's not a representative of any state, so technically assassination wouldn't be an act of war...
I'm not advocating, just pointing out that as an individual, his position is a bit more precarious than I think he realizes.
The richest man in the world facing consequences for his actions? Not in this timeline.
He didn't sabotage it though, as another user pointed out (with sources) he had already turned off starlink awhile ago and didn't want to turn it back on for just this strike.
Starlink is a US defense contractor. These decisions should not be Elons to make.
Starlink is unfortunately a Musk property
Why we shouldn't allow corporations to control information, or information services. They need to be publicly owned.
Or there need to be lots of competing services owned by different companies. That worked reasonably well until companies that are essentially monopolies became the norm, and it's not just news agencies that are a problem. The high inflation we've been seeing is largely caused by record profits that little or no competition allows.
"Capitalism worked pretty well until capitalism happened."
The only way you're getting lots of competing services from competing companies is with a LOT of government regulation of the market. Otherwise the rational behaviour for everyone involved in a free market inevitably leads to monopolies.
If you're looking for a compromise between "everything is state run" and "late stage capitalism" then you can always go with something like the Canadian "Crown Corporation" model, where you create a not-for-profit company whose charter requires them to provide the best possible service at the best possible price. Then you let them compete with the market. Sasktel in Saskatchewan is a great example of this. Canada has famously terrible telecoms pricing, but in Saskatchewan rates are much, much cheaper than the rest of the country, because everyone has to compete with the floor set by Sasktel.
Musk can't be licensed to run a telecommunications company and just do that. It must be stipulated by contract.
Who regulates spectrum in disputed territory? As an operator you have to pick who you're willing to piss off more, Russia has nukes and the capability to physically disrupt the Starlink network.
The International Telecommunications Union which is part of the UN. More importantly, US law is applicable, and it says you can't do such a thing unless you stipulate in ontract that you can.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A furious Ukrainian official has blasted Elon Musk after it was revealed the SpaceX and Starlink founder sabotaged a stealth attack on Russia when he refused to grant access to satellites.
According to Musk’s biographer, that meant during an undercover Ukrainian operation in the Crimean coastal region of Russia, the Twitter owner ordered satellite communications be shut down.
In an excerpt viewed by CNN, Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson writes that Ukrainian drones packed with explosives were headed towards a Russian naval fleet before the tech titan made the order.
Although some of Musk’s backers on the platform supported his decision, others believe Musk—an unelected figure now playing a major role in a global conflict—isn’t qualified to make such calls.
Continuing the conversation on the social media site—which Musk purchased last year for $44 billion—the entrepreneur called for a truce between Ukraine and Russia: “Every day that passes, more Ukrainian and Russian youth die to gain and lose small pieces of land, with borders barely changing.
“Elon, you make great cars (and a lot of money), but that doesn’t qualify you in any way to tip the scales in an existential fight for freedom for the people of Ukraine,” responded Bill Browder, a human rights campaigner and CEO of investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, adding: “Russia started this war, Ukraine is defending itself.
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Musk is an absolute sociopath, but there's actually a logic to this.
Apparently the US has extremely tight export controls for telecomm tech used for war, and Starlink was concerned that by Ukraine using it in an offensive way it would result in the US or other countries classifying Starlink as military tech, thereby limiting where they can export it. That would be really bad for Starlink, of course, which is why they specified at the beginning that Ukraine should only use it for civilian goals (hospitals, schools, government, etc).
I assume the contract between Starlink and the Pentagon covers that, but I haven't researched that far.
What you're describing could not be done in an unbiased way. For example, you're hinging everything on the distinction between whether something is offensive or not, but whoever decides that is in fact making a political and military decision.
Starlink had the option to decline the customer on the whole. We don't want to let them off the hook because they intentionally created a situation where they had and used the power to affect individual battles in real time.
Oh lawd they slammin
This was over a year ago, musk is a shithead fascist but this just reeks of scapegoating for the failed offensive.
Yeah, I was wondering why so many headlines about this, I thought he had done it a 2nd time.
Turns out his biography or something came out and this was mentioned in the book. So apparently this is to drum up attention for his book? Weird option to go with to sell a book.
I didn't hear about it before. Makes sense when a book comes out talking about it more people learned what a piece of shit he is.
if it wasn't this bitches would be complaining that he's providing internet for war shit lol
I had an epiphany today: Jonathan Coulton's the future soon is a song about Elon #Musk.
Pretty funny. Thanks.
Always nice to see JoCo in the wild. :)
I was listening to the Doubleclicks' Lasers and Feelings and had a realization that it could be the counterpart to The Future Soon.
Then I went back to listen to it and had a second epiphany about the narrator of the latter being Musk :)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=NeV9gsl5jR0
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