The mercurial billionaire turned off Starlink communications just ahead of a submersible drone attack, thinking that the assault might unleash nuclear war, according to a forthcoming book.

クロスポスト: https://hexbear.net/post/539800

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk reportedly caused a geopolitical crisis last year, when Ukrainian forces—which have relied heavily on the company’s Starlink satellite communications—were on the verge of striking Russian naval vessels off the coast of Crimea with submersible drones. Concerned that the attack would provoke Russia into using nuclear weapons, Musk unilaterally opted to sever the submarines’ satellite connection, throwing a wrench in the entire assault.

The incident—shared by CNN based on an adapted excerpt from an upcoming book by Walter Isaacson—demonstrates Musk’s increasing unwillingness to lend his satellite network to offensive maneuvers waged by Ukraine. “How am I in this war?” “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.”

After foiling the attack, Musk reportedly received a desperate text from a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who asked that Musk reinstate the Starlink connection to the drones. “I just want you—the person who is changing the world through technology—to know this,” Fedorov wrote. But Musk refused to reverse course, telling Fedorov that Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat.”

Apparently he was worried that the assault would provoke nuclear war. Musk showing actual thought for the first time in ever.

  • HaSch@lemmygrad.ml
    1·
    1 year ago

    This is not about justification but expectation. I do not think anyone here is trying to justify nuclear armageddon. The Japan bombs, along with numerous nuclear weaponry incidents in the past that humanity barely evaded, merely show that the patience of nuclear powers about such incidents is much, much shorter than commonly expected, and that crossing red lines said powers have long been making very explicit could reasonably turn out to have been a bad idea in hindsight

    • School_Lunch@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      If it’s about expectations, then anyone who even thinks of using nukes first should expect their nation to not exist afterward, and those personally responsible will go down in history (if there’s still a world to record it) as the dumbest most evil pieces of shit to ever live.

      • HaSch@lemmygrad.ml
        2·
        1 year ago

        Sorry but somehow I really don’t think the people handling nuclear weapons are awfully concerned about the consequences such an action will have on their street cred

        • School_Lunch@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          Then why do they greedily hang onto power. They could retire and live lives of luxury beyond what most could imagine. I don’t really see any other explanation beyond insatiable egos.

          • HaSch@lemmygrad.ml
            2·
            1 year ago

            The problem is, what if they don’t? You do realise the enormity of the trust such an argument demands of the civilian population if you want them to be on board with military adventurism against nuclear powers? We don’t know for sure what goes on in the mind behind the button, and at least if you ask me, the risk of them having other motivations such as blind national pride, belief in conspiracy theories, or mental illnesses seems already great enough to demerit any such ideas from the start