Elon Musk’s involvement in stopping Ukraine attack raises questions about military contracts
Barnini Chakraborty
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Elon Musk’s thwarting of a Ukrainian attack on a Russian naval fleet near Crimea by refusing access to his Starlink service has raised questions about clarity in military contracts, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has admitted.
Kendall said on Monday that the military may need to be more explicit in future contracts or products it purchases that are used in war.
“If we’re going to rely upon commercial architectures or commercial systems for operational use, then we have to have some assurances that they’re going to be available,” he said. “We have to have that. Otherwise, they are a convenience and maybe an economy in peacetime, but they’re not something we can rely upon in wartime.”
His comments come on the heels of a new book out Tuesday by biographer Walter Isaacson titled Elon Musk. In it, Isaacson claims Musk ordered the deactivation of the satellite service near the coast of Crimea last September following a conversation Musk had with a Russian official who led him to believe that an attack on Crimea could spiral out of control and lead to a nuclear war, endangering the lives of millions of more people.
Musk was not on a military contract when he refused the Crimea request though he had provided Ukraine free coverage in response to Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Since then, the U.S. military has funded and contracted with Starlink for support, though details have not been shared publicly.
After the details from the book broke, Musk tried to defend his actions, claiming he had not disabled the service so much as refused to comply with an emergency request by Ukrainian officials to enable the service in the specific area. His denial, however, was a roundabout admission he had interfered with Ukraine’s plan to attack Russia’s naval fleet.
Isaacson also walked back the claims.
“To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not,” Isaacson posted on X, largely mirroring what Musk had said. “They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet.”
“Based on my conversations with Musk, I mistakenly thought the policy to not allow Starlink to be used for an attack on Crimea had been first decided on the night of the Ukrainian attempted sneak attack that night,” Isaacson added in a follow-up post. “He now says that the policy had been implemented earlier, but the Ukrainians did not know it, and that night he simply reaffirmed the policy.”
Musk’s Starlink has played a high-profile role in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia and has been praised in the past for lending a lifeline to areas in Ukraine where communication lines had been wiped out by Russian forces. The praise has since shifted to scorn following the news that Musk helped Moscow.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, also used X, Musk’s own media platform formerly known as Twitter, to hold him accountable.
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“Sometimes a mistake is much more than just a mistake,” Podolyak wrote. “By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via #Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities.”
Podolyak added, “As a result, civilians, children are being killed. This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego. However, the question still remains: Why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?”