Elon Musk ‘Secretly’ Used Starlink To Foil A Ukrainian Attack On Russian Naval Fleet Over Fear Of Nuclear War: Report
Elon Musk “secretly” disrupted a Ukrainian sneak attack on a Russian naval fleet by telling his engineers to turn off Starlink’s satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year, according to a new report.
An excerpt from Walter Isaacson‘s new biography titled “Elon Musk” claims that the billionaire was driven to disrupt the attack fearing that Russia would respond by using nuclear weapons on Crimea, according to CNN. The fear originated through conversation with senior Russian officials.
Last year, Ukrainian submarine drones armed with explosives planned to attack a Russian fleet near the Crimean coast but “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.” As a result, Ukrainian government officials begged the Twitter owner to turns the satellites back on.
Musk believed at the time the attack would result in a “mini-Pearl Harbor” according to the biography set to be published by Simon & Schuster on September 12th.
During the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Musk agreed to provide the country with Starlink systems to help the Ukrainians on the battlefield. However, Musk began to second-guess his decision when Ukraine started using Starlink for offensive operations against Russia.
“How am I in this war?” Musk allegedly told Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”
Per CNN, Musk also spoke to top members of the Biden administration after turning the switch off on Starlink in Ukraine:
Musk was soon on the phone with President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, and the Russian ambassador to the US to address anxieties from Washington, DC, to Moscow, writes Isaacson.
Meanwhile, Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, was pleading with Musk to restore connectivity for the submarine drones by telling Musk about their capabilities in a text message, according to Isaacson. “I just want you—the person who is changing the world through technology—to know this,” Fedorov told Musk.
Musk, the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla and private space exploration firm SpaceX, replied that he was impressed with the design of the submarine drones but that he wouldn’t turn satellite coverage back on for Crimea because Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat,” according to Isaacson.
