American billionaire Elon Musk partially transferred control over "Starlink" systems to the US military.
His biographer Walter Isaacson told about this in an interview with The Washington Post newspaper.
According to him, after the "Starlink" shutdown in the temporarily occupied Crimea, which prevented the Ukrainian attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Musk began to fear a nuclear war.
"I was talking to him during all of this, and one late night he said, ʼWhy am I in this war? I, you know, created Starlink so that people could relax and watch Netflix movies and play video games. I didnʼt want to create something that could cause a nuclear war,ʼ" Isaacson noted.
He noted that he asked the businessman if he had spoken about it with the US presidentʼs national security adviser Jake Sullivan and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.
"And he did it. He talked to them and said: ʼIf they order me to do something, I would do it if I was instructed,ʼ" the biographer said.
The journalist emphasized that after that, Musk decided to transfer full control over a certain amount of "Starlink" equipment and "Starlink" services to the US military so that he "no longer controls geofences."
"It no longer controls the terms of use," the writer concluded.
- Earlier, the CNN channel reported that in 2022, Musk secretly ordered the shutdown of Starlink near the coast of Crimea in order to disrupt Ukraineʼs attack on the Russian navy in Sevastopol. The TV channel received a fragment of Muskʼs biography written by American journalist and writer Walter Isaacson.
- Musk reacted to the scandal and stated that he did not turn off the "Starlink" satellite communication for drones, but refused to turn it on there at the request of Ukraine. Ultimately, on June 1, 2023, the Pentagon approved an agreement with SpaceX to purchase "Starlink" for Ukraine, which Musk will not be able to disable at will.
- On September 12, US Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren called for an investigation into Musk and his decision to shut down "Starlink" around Crimea. According to her, "foreign policy should be conducted by the government, not by one billionaire."