Musk said SpaceX will keep financing Starlink in Ukraine.
Musk promised in February, shortly after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, to send a swarm of Starlink terminals to the war-torn country to restore communications and internet services. At the time, it was considered as a selfless and altruistic move on Musk’s part, but the American billionaire has announced that SpaceX will no longer be able to fund the Starlink network in Ukraine.
Musk appears to have changed his mind shortly after making his announcement. He stated that SpaceX will continue to sponsor Starlink satellite internet terminals, assisting Ukrainian military in their defense of their territory against Russian troops “for free.”
“To hell with it… “Even if Starlink is still losing money and other companies are receiving billions of taxpayer dollars, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine’s government for free,” Musk said in a tweet. The US military reportedly revealed that it was in discussions with SpaceX about sponsoring Starlink’s Ukrainian service.
This is a total 180-degree change from Musk’s decision on Friday, as seen by his tweets. “SpaceX is not requesting reimbursement for past expenses, but it also cannot continue to fund the existing system indefinitely,” he tweeted on Friday, adding that SpaceX could no longer “deliver several thousand more terminals with data usage up to 100X more than ordinary families.”
According to a letter issued by SpaceX’s director of government sales to the Pentagon, Musk’s space company was “not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indeterminate period of time,” according to another CNN report.
So far, around 25,000 Starlink terminals have been deployed in Ukraine, and according to Musk, the operation cost the firm $80 million, an amount that would approach $100 million by the end of the year, and nearly $400 million over the next 12 months, according to a CNN article. He went on to say that only a “small percentage” of Starlink’s terminals and internet service were paid for. When someone mentioned that around 150,000 Ukrainians utilize Starlink’s service on a daily basis (as of May 2, 2022), Musk responded that he was in “frequent touch” with Fedorov.
Starlink, for its part, has been critical in reactivating Ukraine’s critical infrastructure even as the country has been encircled by Russian forces for months. Starlink’s terminals and internet network assisted both the military and citizens in remaining connected, and Fedorov referred to the billionaire as “among the world’s top private philanthropists helping Ukraine.” “Starlink is a crucial component of our critical infrastructure,” he said.
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