WASHINGTON —
Elon Musk said on Saturday
that his company SpaceX will continue to pay for Starlink satellite internet in
war-torn Ukraine, one day after the tech mogul suggested he could not keep
funding the project.
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Starlink, a constellation of more than
3,000 small satellites in low Earth orbit, has been vital to Ukraine's
communications as it battles Russia.
But Musk has found himself embroiled of
late in public spats with Ukrainian leaders who were angered by his
controversial proposals for deescalating the conflict, which included
acknowledging Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
"The hell with it," Musk, the
world's richest man, wrote on Twitter.
"Even though Starlink is still losing
money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we'll just keep
funding Ukraine govt for free."
In a series of tweets on Friday, Musk had
detailed the logistics of the operation and said it was costing
SpaceX nearly
$20 million per month, and suggested the company could not fund it
indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the US military confirmed it was
communicating with the billionaire's company about funding for the key network.
"SpaceX is not asking to recoup past
expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send
several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than
typical households," he said on Friday. "This is unreasonable."
Pentagon funding on cards?
SpaceX has donated some 25,000 ground
terminals to Ukraine, according to an updated figure given by Musk last week.
He says the operation has already cost
SpaceX $80 million, and that total is projected to exceed $100 million by the
end of the year.
Musk also appeared to confirm a report by
CNN saying he had written to the Pentagon warning that his financial
contributions would come to an end, and that the military would need to foot
the bill.
According to CNN, SpaceX figures shared
with the
Pentagon show that about 85 percent of the first 20,000 terminals in
Ukraine were paid at least in part by countries such as the United States,
Poland, or other entities, which also paid for about 30 percent of internet
connectivity.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina
Singh said on Friday the Pentagon is in contact with Musk about the funding
issue, saying it had "received correspondence from SpaceX about the
funding of... their satellite communications product in Ukraine."
Musk has recently been in a spat with
Ukrainian officials including President Volodymyr Zelensky after suggesting a
peace deal that involved re-running controversial referendums in
Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine — an idea welcomed by Moscow.
A senior Ukrainian presidential aide,
Mykhaylo Podolyak, acknowledged the importance of Starlink in a tweet on
Friday.
"Like it or not,
@elonmusk helped us
survive the most critical moments of war," Podolyak wrote, adding that
Ukraine "will find a solution to keep
#Starlink working".
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