Starlink disabled: Elon Musk allegedly “sabotaged” Ukrainian attack X wants to use user data for AI training

Elon Musk secretly instructed his engineers last year to cut off Starlink satellite communications near Crimea to prevent a drone strike from a Ukrainian submarine on Russian military ships. This was reported by CNN on Thursday, citing an excerpt from a forthcoming book by American author Walter Isaacson.

As the explosive-laden drones approached the Russian fleet, “they lost contact and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson reportedly writes in a biography titled “Elon Musk,” due for release Sept. 12.

Musk’s decision led to Ukrainian officials pleading with him to reactivate satellite links. Without success.

The closure was reportedly based on Musk’s “acute fear” that Russia could respond with nuclear weapons to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea.

Musk spoke to Putin

According to a media report, technology billionaire Musk informed the US Department of Defense in 2022 about a face-to-face meeting with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.

At the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the US tech entrepreneur donated Starlink receivers to the country and let them use them for free.

Also, in a personal conversation with Putin, it would be pithy that Musk had published questionable ideas for a solution to the war that Russia was to blame for at the time. Among other things, he suggested that Ukraine give up the Crimean peninsula, which Russia had annexed in violation of international law – in exchange for an end to the war and referenda in the Russian-occupied territories.

Despite Russian aggression, these ideas were widely criticized, with Musk accusing him of falling for Russian propaganda and influence.

Starlink’s importance in the war in Ukraine has not diminished, CNN now states.

Sources

(dsc)