“The hell with it…”: Elon Musk will continue to finance Starlink for Ukraine
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reversed his decision to stop funding Starlink terminals sent to Ukraine saying on Twitter that the company will continue to provide “free” satellite internet to the government, even if it means losing money.
“The hell with it…,” writes Musk on Twitter. “Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding ukraine govt for free.”
On October 14, CNN reported that the company SpaceX asked the Pentagon to pay for additional terminals that will be sent to Ukraine. Those costs could reportedly reach about $124 million by the end of 2022 and nearly $380 million over the next 12 months. Musk later added on Twitter that Starlink cannot finance services in Ukraine “indefinitely”, noting in another tweet that Starlink loses about $20 million a month to maintain its services.
Musk says that Starlink has sent about 25,000 terminals to aid Ukraine’s military effort. The service plays an important role in keeping the Ukrainian military and civilians connected during the war, as the country continues to suffer power outages due to Russian missile strikes and the risk of cyber attacks remains high.
In early October, Musk allowed himself an inappropriate proposal regarding Ukrainian-Russian relations, and later it turned out that before writing offensive tweets for Ukrainians he probably had a conversation with Putin.