Elon Musk says he refused to give Kyiv access to his Starlink communications network over Crimea to avoid complicity in a “major act of war”.
Kyiv had sent an emergency request to activate Starlink to Sevastopol, home to a major Russian navy port, he said.
His comments came after a book alleged he had switched off Starlink to thwart a drone attack on Russian ships.
A senior Ukrainian official says this enabled Russian attacks and accused him of “committing evil”.
Russian naval vessels had since taken part in deadly attacks on civilians, he said.
“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities,” he said.
“Why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?” he added.
The row follows the release of a biography of the billionaire by Walter Isaacson which alleges that Mr Musk switched off Ukraine’s access to Starlink because he feared that an ambush of Russia’s naval fleet in Crimea could provoke a nuclear response from the Kremlin.
Ukraine targeted Russian ships in Sevastopol with submarine drones carrying explosives but they lost connection to Starlink and “washed ashore harmlessly”, Mr Isaacson wrote.
Starlink terminals connect to SpaceX satellites in orbit and have been crucial for maintaining internet connectivity and communication in Ukraine as the conflict has disrupted the country infrastructure.
So, in the classic trolley problem, Elon’s choice is to remove the track switch that his company produced so that no one else could use it to make a choice.
“Sorry, guys. Looks like those innocent civilians tied to the tracks are going to have to die so that I am not tangentially and tenuously responsible for your choice to save them in exchange for the deaths of Russian soldiers attacking your sovereign lands and people (cough and lose money from the Kremlin as a result cough)”
There’s no “right” answer to the trolley problem. But there are definitely wrong ones.
I love Rush
His logic seems to be that Ukraine is to blame for all the bloodshed of the Russian invasion because they didn’t roll over and surrender without a fight.
Victim blaming. Classic asshole move.
Did Elon have a stroke at some point that we don’t know about? It’s amazing how consistently he makes a huge ass of himself now.
That I don’t think is his logic
He’s said about that - Ukraine should negotiate with the Russians and give them territory because war is so killy.
That depends on your moral basis.
Fair enough. My moral basis says that using my personal power and authority to undermine deals that I specifically sought to make in the first place, upon which others are dependent for literal survival, in order to backpedal my involvement in their survival attempts which I knew from the beginning was the entire point of the deal, the result of which directly and predictably leads to the deaths of hundreds/thousands of innocents… I consider that a moral failing. How about you?