Twitter and Ukraine

The relationship between Elon Musk and Ukraine is complicated. First off, Musk has some authoritarian tendencies, and despite his claims of absolute free speech, he is not. In my view, a democratic Ukraine, nor under the Russian boot, is a threat to Musk and other oligarchs worldwide.

Ukraine is still having problems, but it is an emerging democracy in a world where democracy is under attack. Therefore, this is but one more attack on Ukraine. Some of those attacks are happening in the United States, by the way. Twitter is now taken territory by the far right, in my view.

First, let’s deal with the Starlink network. According to the Washington Post, back in October:

After Russia launched its invasion, Ukrainian officials pleaded for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to dispatch their Starlink terminals to the region to boost Internet access. “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route,” Musk replied to broad online fanfare.

Since then, the company has cast the actions in part as a charitable gesture. “I’m proud that we were able to provide the terminals to folks in Ukraine,” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said at a public event last month, later telling CNBC, “I don’t think the U.S. has given us any money to give terminals to the Ukraine.”

But according to documents obtained by The Technology 202, the U.S. federal government is in fact paying millions of dollars for a significant portion of the equipment and for the transportation costs to get it to Ukraine.