Musk wants the Pentagon to pay the bill for network connectivity in Ukraine – NRK Urix – Foreign news and documentaries

Hell, type a tech tycoon Twitter Saturday evening.

And for several days he threatened to cut off the network’s connection with Ukraine if the US Department of Defense did not take the bill.

“We can only continue to fund the Ukrainian government absolutely free,” Musk writes today.

belt with satellite

Today there are about 3,000 small Starlink satellites floating in the Earth’s atmosphere.

These are low, and were vital to the Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invasion.

Namely, SpaceX has paid about 25,000 terminals located on the ground in Ukrainian territory, to launch, maintain and defend satellites.

Although many countries claim to have pumped money into the stations, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, said the project was too costly.

He tweeted that he had notified the Pentagon, the US Department of Defense, that the money would be running out, and asked them to bill for future expenses.

Musk further wrote that it was “unreasonable” for his company to pay to send several thousand new terminals to Ukraine, which he says uses hundreds of times more data than average households.

According to him, the project will The cost of SpaceX is between 800 million and one billion crowns before the new year.

However, CNN reports Figures SpaceX has shared with the Pentagon show that about 85 percent of Ukraine’s first 20,000 stations are at least partially paid for.

This money is said to have come from the USA and Poland, among others. CNN also claims that about a third of Internet connectivity is paid for by the same parties.

A senior Pentagon source told the newspaper that Musk and SpaceX are “rude” and “call themselves heroes,” while others have had to pay a lot of work, and the Pentagon has now received a bill of tens of millions of dollars. Month.

Confirms conversations with SpaceX

The Pentagon confirms to AFP that it is in talks with the billionaire’s company about how to pay for the crucial network connection in Ukraine.

– The department has received correspondence from SpaceX about the financing of a satellite communications product in Ukraine, says press spokeswoman Sabrina Singh at the US Department of Defense.

We are still in dialogue with SpaceX about this and other topics.

Singh previously told reporters that there are potential alternatives to Starlink, but he didn’t say exactly what those alternatives were.

During the day, Musk was embroiled in several conflicts with Ukrainian leaders on Twitter, provoked by his plan to de-escalate the conflict.

This included, among other things, the acceptance of Crimea becoming Russian, and the reinstatement of referendums in the region that Russia is trying to annex. Top Russian managers say they are positive about the latter.

Musk was asked to “go to hell”

Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrei Melnik, joined the discussion about Musk’s proposals on Twitter on Friday. “Go to hell,” he told Mask.

Musk replied that SpaceX was “only following his recommendation.” 🤷».

But the US Agency for International Development said last night that SpaceX has not withdrawn its services in Ukraine, as far as it is aware.

As a senior Ukrainian leader close to the president, Mikhailo Podolyak, tweeted:

Like it or not, Elon Musk helped us survive the most dangerous moments of the war.

He added that Ukraine “will find a solution” so that Starlink can continue to operate.