Elon Musk is embroiled in a new Twitter spat, this time with Ukrainian government officials.
(Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Elon Musk said SpaceX has spent $80 million to support Starlink in Ukraine and $0 on Russia.
“Obviously, we are pro Ukraine,” he tweeted, hours after being blasted by Ukraine diplomats on Twitter.
Musk polled a peace plan for the Russia-Ukraine war, which seemingly parroted Putin’s propaganda.
Elon Musk is embroiled in a new Twitter spat, this time with Ukrainian government officials.
It started on Monday, when Musk posted a poll on Twitter about a peace plan for the war in Ukraine. The poll triggered backlash, with Ukrainian diplomats lambasting Musk over the poll, which seemingly parroted the Kremlin’s talking points.
Late on Monday night, Musk said he is “obviously” pro-Ukraine, writing on Twitter that SpaceX has spent $80 million running Starlink in Ukraine.
“SpaceX’s out of pocket cost to enable & support Starlink in Ukraine is ~$80M so far. Our support for Russia is $0. Obviously, we are pro Ukraine,” he wrote.
Starlink is SpaceX’s satellite communication system, which is being used by Ukrainian soldiers to communicate on the battlefield. Voice and internet services have been rendered useless by power outages, Russian shells, and jamming.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022
Musk’s initial Twitter poll had called for a vote on a list of conditions he seemed to imply could lead to peace between Ukraine and Russia, including redoing the elections in regions recently annexed by Russia and recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Ukrainian government officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, responded to the poll quickly and critically. Zelenskyy tweeted out his own poll, asking people which Musk they liked better: The one who supports Russia, or the one who supports Ukraine.
—Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 3, 2022
While the Twitterverse was polling on peace plans and Musk’s likeability, Musk’s Starlink has been helping Ukrainian war efforts on the ground.
“Thank you, Elon Musk,” Oleksiy, a soldier in the Ukrainian army, told Politico in June, crediting Musk’s Starlink for aiding communication of the war efforts.
Musk has sent thousands of Starlink satellite kits into Ukraine since the outbreak of the war. This serves both ways, as he’s using the opportunity to test these satellite services, which he’s also trying to sell to other countries, per the Wall Street Journal.
“Without Starlink, we would have been losing the war already,” one platoon commander on the Izyum front in Ukraine told the Journal.