Elon Musk Agrees to Sell a Portion of Starlink Assets to the U.S. Department of Defense

news.yahoo.com

Elon Musk was right to cede Starlink access to Pentagon, says biographer

U.S. billionaire Elon Musk has agreed to sell a portion of Starlink assets to the U.S. Department of Defense, removing himself from decision-making regarding geofencing Ukraine’s access to the satellite internet service

61 comments

Fuck him, seize the company and nationalize it
- In my opinion, all companies essential to national security should be nationalised. I mean the likes of Lockheed Martin as well. There should be no profit from war and we can't afford companies to chase profits against the interests of national security if we end up needing it.
  
  How does it work in China?
- they should seize twitter while they’re at it too
  
  It's so hard to get media to take off, I don't see how someone takes a brand, a brand so well known its own language has become common (tweet, retweet) and decides the best thing to do is destroy all that effort.
  Especially with social media, where the people generate yr content for you, disadvantaging your volunteer labor force isn't a sound strategy (looking at your dumb ass Spez).
  At least it's right out in the open for everyone to see, that the idea we're in any kind of a meritocracy is a colossal myth.
- LOL

Musk sure has a big fucking mouth. There most have been some sobering back door conversations for this to happen so quickly.
- i'd love to hear what they threatened him with as this doesnt read like he had any choice
  
  “Here is every illegal thing you’ve done since you were conceived, including the ones in countries that the US has an extradition agreement with. Also, here is how much we will pay you to be our bitch. Would you like to continue this discussion?”
  
  Probably all of his SpaceX and Tesla contracts.
  
  "Wanna take a ride in a self driving Tesla off a cliff?"
  
  Same

Hahahaha forced is more like it. We just nationalized a portion of Starlink. Nice going Elon, you fucking troglodyte.
- Don't laugh too hard. We are the ones paying the bill for it.
  ie, Our taxes are now indirectly ended up directly in Elon's pocket. And, I can promise he didn't cut us a deal.
  
  It's a small price to pay if it results in saving Ukrainian lives by having it in more capable, less idiotic hands.
  
  You never know. The threat of an extraordinary rendition to Ukraine might have kept the price down.
  
  Did Starlink and SpaceX not already receive a lot of government funding for their rockets etc? You could argue that the taxpayers should own x% because they paid the bill for it...

Now tax him and get the money back.

Noel Reports:
A British Journalist asked Elon Musk:
"Has your ignorance and ego cost Ukrainian lives? Putin calls you outstanding, how would you call Putin?"
Musk refused to comment.
- On a secure, private line twice a week?

On the one hand, yay for nationalising utilities!
On the other, not under the already most bloated military in the world who can't even account for billions of their yearly funding ffs!!
- I don't think they lost billions as much as they pumped it into black projects.
  
  I didn't say they lost them, I said they couldn't account for them: they were audited a bunch of times and failed by billions every time, probably for the reason you mentioned AND because they get so much money that they don't feel a need to make an effort to track it all

There's no way muskrat can keep his mouth shut about this, surely?
- Probably going to spin this as a win and something he initiated. He is unable to be weak or at fault for something.

Agreed = forced. I bet the price was cheap to avoid court martial level problems 😅
- He can't be court martialed, and he can't be convicted of treason either. He isn't a member of the military and Russia is not officially an enemy of America. To put it into perspective, even in the Cold War, when the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage for giving the Soviet Union information on radar, sonar, jet propulsion, and nuclear secrets, they still weren't convicted of treason, because technically the USSR was not an enemy of America, which historically has been interpreted as "Congress has actually declared war on them" something we haven't done since WW2. If you were to look up a list of people convicted of treason in America you will note it largely stops after 1945.
  And that is a very good thing, especially from the perspective that many nations still consider mild criticism of the head of state treason.
  He can, however, suddenly be subjected to much, much more scrutiny than even an actually innocent person would be comfortable with for interfering with American... "Interests."
- A civilian can't be court-martialed.

We made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
- I bet he tried though.

Why doesn't he trade them X for some of Starlink? The value of ~~Twitter~~ X is in the negatives now, right?
Then maybe as a government run social media it can be stable and boring again.
- government run social media
  ree eee
  
  Honestly probably wouldn't be all that bad. It likely be like the cspan of social media
  
  Eh the EU and some (or one) Euro country has started their own Mastodon/Fediverse instances—The idea isn't terrible if your country isn't shit.
- It will be the opposite. The government will not be able to sensor or moderate anything but illegal stuff because of the first amendment.
- Because they want Starlink satellites for Ukraine probably (and other uses but now this at minimum). X doesn't provide them with shit.

Spill some more dirt on Twitter and let them take Twitter while they're at it. Make it a 2 for 1 go away special.

I wonder how this is portioned out? To be completely hands free, Musk would need to sell a portion of his fleet and the control systems that operate it. This would also include relaunching replacement satellites. Since this is an orbiting system (not geostationary) he’d have to sell enough in a band around the earth to keep Ukraine covered.
- Geostationary satellites are orbiting. They are orbiting at a speed and direction to match the earth's rotation.

Musk says that he never had turned Starlink on in Crimea, but had denied Ukraine's request to turn it on. But that doesn't add up. Why would Ukraine go through with the attack if the request was denied, as the Musk says it was? It is just more plausible that Musk cut off service, causing the marine drones to flounder and wash up onshore in Crimea.

First nickel he's made this year

61 comments