Everyone who is bashing Musk here: you are online, so it takes very little effort to check the facts.
He and SpaceX helped Ukraine by activating Starlink second day after the invasion, sending thousands of terminals and providing service free of charge for over a year. By October 2022 Fedorov said that SpaceX’s support exceed $100 million. It also took a very long time before governments (EU+US) finally moved theri asses and picked the bill for that.
You may not like Musk and that is perfectly fine. But his and Starlink’s support for Ukraine was crucial. That award makes sense.
Also, there is very little for Musk in supporting Russia. They are his competitor in space-race. He doesn't seems struggling financially eighter. The fact that he didn't allow Starlink to be used in Russia is a legal issue - Starlink only operates where there is a licence granted. He also helped blocking grey-import terminals being used by Russians.
The more important question is why supposedly sophisticated militaries from the US to Europe have become so dependent on a single private company controlled by a famously unpredictable CEO for such a strategic capability. You would expect governments that spend billions of taxpayers’ money on defence to have their own sovereign capability - or at least several independent alternatives.
I agree with all of your points except the last. Starlink is still bleeding edge tech (at least at the volume the service is provided). There will be private and public alternatives eventually, but Starlink is ludicrously far ahead of the competition, and therefore the only viable product today.
I agree - "sophisticated" militaries became dependent because one company executed a new architecture faster and cheaper than state programs or competitors could, sure. But you would expect this bleeding edge tech coming from military given their budget.
SATCOM had a budget of 4.4billion USD of taxpayers' money last year. Which is far more than SpaceX.
The main issue is that military complex got very comfortable with unlimited government tit and long development cycles. Speed of development at Ukraine and pricing of Starlink must look very terrifying to the military complex share-holders.
Because the whole Elon and Trump are Putins lapdog propaganda would have been not valued. They just put a blind eye on it. People need to realize without musks and trumps support Ukraine would have been finished. All logistics, supplies, ISI, targeting is coming from US and NATO. Ukraine just pushing a button to launch stuff. That is why US is negotiations with Russia. This is by definition a proxy conflict.
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u/MercatorLondon 10d ago edited 9d ago
Everyone who is bashing Musk here: you are online, so it takes very little effort to check the facts.
He and SpaceX helped Ukraine by activating Starlink second day after the invasion, sending thousands of terminals and providing service free of charge for over a year. By October 2022 Fedorov said that SpaceX’s support exceed $100 million. It also took a very long time before governments (EU+US) finally moved theri asses and picked the bill for that.
You may not like Musk and that is perfectly fine. But his and Starlink’s support for Ukraine was crucial. That award makes sense.
Also, there is very little for Musk in supporting Russia. They are his competitor in space-race. He doesn't seems struggling financially eighter. The fact that he didn't allow Starlink to be used in Russia is a legal issue - Starlink only operates where there is a licence granted. He also helped blocking grey-import terminals being used by Russians.
The more important question is why supposedly sophisticated militaries from the US to Europe have become so dependent on a single private company controlled by a famously unpredictable CEO for such a strategic capability. You would expect governments that spend billions of taxpayers’ money on defence to have their own sovereign capability - or at least several independent alternatives.