Remember that time- not so long ago when Elon Musk was trying to solve the Russia/Ukraine problem through a series of Twitter polls?
Well, the tech billionaire now appears to be a bit more one-sided.
According to Musk, he can no longer pay for his Starlink satellite internet service to operate in Ukraine. This comes less than two weeks after a Ukrainian official told Musk to “f–k off” over his controversial proposal for peace with Russia. Musk had offered the SpaceX-owned service to Ukraine in February after the Russian invasion disrupted the country’s local internet services.
SpaceX has since installed thousands of terminals to keep the Ukrainian military online. But Musk drew heavy criticism from Ukrainians for suggesting they should end the war by conceding Crimea to Russia, as well as doing an unsupervised “redo” of elections to annex several regions of the country last month.
In response to the proposal, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany wrote on Twitter: “f–k off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonMusk.”
Musk replied that he is now “just following his recommendation”.
SpaceX is spending almost 20-million a month to maintain the service and has already spent over 80 million to set it up in Ukraine. Ukraine’s vice prime minister said this week that Starlink services have been vital to the country’s war effort.
