The Daily Beast is reporting that Elon Musk ordered engineers to switch off his Starlink satellites just as Ukraine was preparing to attack the Russian naval fleet with drones. He said he feared nuclear retaliation by Russia. It’s high time we ask the question: How much power and influence does it make sense to hand just one person?
@georgetakei This episode raises even more questions. How did Elon know when and where the operation was happening so as to disable communications at the critical moment such that the attack would fail and the drone assets lost? What other operations is he meddling with? Is he sharing any comms or location information gleaned from #Starlink with the Russians?
I'm no elmo fan, but if Starlink is used for direct military purposes rather than humanitarian operations, it becomes both a military and sanctions target. Russia has a pretty robust ASAT capability.
@mastodonmigration@georgetakei
He got the necessary intel from the Russians, sources tasked with observation of Ukrainian actions. A followup question is how musk established a relationship with that russian group with lines of communication? and why would he have done that? He is lying when he says he is not involved with this war. He is like all the Tankies who say they are neutral.
It's not so much about Elon's craziness (which should be beyond any doubt, by now), it is the general question, whether public infrastructure belongs in private hands or not.
I reckon, there are not many arguments for private ownership, except for "but capitalism is good, socialism is evil".
@georgetakei Elon Musk he is in bed with the Russian AMERICA should put him on the black list. I suspect a Ukrainian traitor to inform Elon Musk of all the Ukrainian army movement. We Romania we have 7000 Ukrainian deserter from the Ukrainian army refusing to fight against Russia. Most of them are very young age.
@georgetakei it's quite possible they could at least take out his starlink infrastructure.
The service isn't even available in Russia, so putin won't care if the hole network goes down.
The Ukrainians were using the service for offensive means (boat drones etc) which was in violation of the agreement according to a comment back in February.
It sounds like the service was mainly meant for civilian use.
@georgetakei mate, Trump and Putin both held/hold the destruction of mankind in their hands (amongst others). Musk is chicken-feed compared to that bullshit.
@georgetakei Why does this vaguely shock, surprise or astound us? Isn’t this just another typical personal intervention by another powerful person in the millennia of wars? Personal, family and corporate interests have always gone hand in hand with war. Another reason to assign capitalism to the compost heap
@georgetakei he is dumb as shit who wants validation and kremlin successfully exploits that. However I feel story is much simpler than that. It was during that time kremlin was trying to paint that picture that any additional help to Ukraine will be seen as escalation. After delivery of tanks and F16 anyone will half a cell recognise it as very rough but very effective bluff against stupid. But I do not think he was alone in such thinking.
Overall though he cannot have such power. No man can.
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