Walter Isaacson Corrects Reporting on Elon Musk Cutting Ukrainian Military’s Access to Starlink

Walter Isaacson corrected the record on Elon Musk’s control over Starlink’s usage in Ukraine after it became a major news story surrounding the mercurial tech billionaire.

The uproar stemmed from Isaacson’s upcoming biography, titled “Elon Musk,” as media outlets covered excerpts of the book ahead of its release on Tuesday. One of the previewed portions that received the most attention in recent days was the part of the book that claimed Musk subverted the Ukrainian military by unexpectedly turning off Starlink’s satellite communications network in the middle of their operations.

When the Washington Post published this excerpt from Isaacson’s book on Thursday, it described Musk secretly ordering his engineers to turn off Starlink’s coverage near the Crimean coast last year as the Ukrainians were conducting a sneak attack against Russia’s navy in the midst of their invasion. The excerpt portrayed Musk as fearful that the attack would cause an escalation into nuclear conflict while Ukrainian officials reportedly implored him to restore their military’s Starlink access.

From the original version of the article:

Throughout the evening and into the night, he personally took charge of the situation. Allowing the use of Starlink for the attack, he concluded, could be a disaster for the world. So he secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast. As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.

When the Ukrainian military noticed that Starlink was disabled in and around Crimea, Musk got frantic calls and texts asking him to turn the coverage back on. Fedorov, the deputy prime minister who had originally enlisted his help, secretly shared with him the details of how the drone subs were crucial to their fight for freedom. “We made the sea drones ourselves, they can destroy any cruiser or submarine,” he texted using an encrypted app. “I did not share this information with anyone. I just want you — the person who is changing the world through technology — to know this.”

A day after the original excerpt made waves in the media, Isaacson got on X (formerly Twitter) to clarify a vital point about Starlink access in Ukraine.

“The Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not,” Isaacson said. “They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.”

Isaacson elaborated further in another post where he admitted to a mistake:

Obviously, there’s a significant difference between Musk secretly subverting a live military endeavor versus the Ukrainians not realizing ahead of time that Starlink wouldn’t help them carry out their offensive. Thus, as media outlets adjusted their framing on the Starlink access, the Post added a correction to their article on Sunday, explaining that Isaacson “mischaracterized” the circumstances:

After publication of this adaptation, the author learned that his book mischaracterized the attempted attack by Ukrainian drones on the Russian fleet in Crimea. Musk had already disabled (“geofenced”) coverage within 100 km of the Crimean coast before the attack began, and when the Ukrainians discovered this, they asked him to activate the coverage, and he refused. This version reflects that change.

Here’s the new passage they put in the article to replace the old one.

What the Ukrainians did not know was that Musk decided not to enable Starlink coverage of the Crimean coast. When the Ukrainian military learned that Starlink would not allow a successful attack, Musk got frantic calls and texts asking him to turn the coverage on. Fedorov, the deputy prime minister who had originally enlisted his help, secretly shared with him the details of how the drone subs were crucial to their fight for freedom. “We made the sea drones ourselves, they can destroy any cruiser or submarine,” he texted using an encrypted app. “I did not share this information with anyone. I just want you — the person who is changing the world through technology — to know this.”

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