In the Antarctic, in the middle of the ocean, or in one of earth’s several active war zones, if you have internet service, it’s probably through Starlink. Having launched more than 10,000 Starlink satellites into orbit using his rocket company SpaceX, Elon Musk unilaterally controls internet access in the world’s most dangerous and remote places.
Homo sapiens are a communicative species, and also a power-hungry species. Thus, it seems obvious that it is a bad idea to put an entire communications medium in the hands of one man.
It seems especially risky to put an entire communications medium in the hands of the richest man in the history of the world who grows ever increasingly erratic and unhinged. Musk is not well.
Yet, here we are. Close to five years ago, Ukraine was invaded by its neighbor Russia for no reason beyond the fact that Russia wanted to seize Ukrainian land and people. In fighting throughout Ukraine to repel the Russian aggressors, innovative Ukrainian defensive techniques relied on Starlink internet services (sometimes separately branded as Starshield in military contexts) to defeat Russian missiles, drones, and air power.
Meanwhile, Musk has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to become, by far, the biggest donor to Republican candidates this election cycle. He additionally spent hundreds of millions in previous election cycles to elect Trump and other Republicans. It is not unclear which side of America’s political divide Musk is on.
Donald Trump is a doddering old man who does not have any logically consistent policy positions. Any cogent American leader would vigorously support Ukraine.
So, naturally, Trump bounces back and forth on alternatively supporting Ukraine or Russia like a strongly whacked billiard ball. Most recently, Trump yet again turned on Ukraine, and when the Starlink internet access Ukraine relies on to defend its civilians was then mysteriously throttled, Trump denied responsibility.
After several days of blame-shifting and confusion, Musk came out and said:
Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be. Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.
To be clear, everyone on the American right is an iredeemable liar, and we won’t know for years whether Trump actually ordered Musk to throttle Ukraine’s internet service, or whether Musk decided to do it all on his own. In either case, we do know that Ukrainian defensive drones fell out of the sky when their Starlink internet access was throttled.
Were some Russians working at oil refineries or shipyards or military depots saved when Musk cut off Ukraine’s Starlink internet access? Perhaps. Yet, we know for a fact that Ukrainian civilians, left defenseless, were killed while Starlink was throttled, including children.
Musk should not be allowed to favor the lives of Russian soldiers and grown industrial workers over the lives of Ukrainian civilians (including women and children). Truman nationalized the steel industry. Wilson nationalized the railroads. This is not unprecedented — no single man, no single for-profit industry, should have unimpeachable control over a necessary element of a country’s national defense. Musk should not be able to make these decisions himself.
Musk claimed SpaceX has never allowed anyone to use Starlink to kill people. But, by throttling Ukraine’s Starlink service, he almost certainly caused the deaths of Ukrainian civilians, among them a 1-year-old child.
It’s almost as if we shouldn’t be letting an out-of-touch, likely sociopathic billionaire who has allegedly ingested more drugs than Mick Jagger decide who lives and who dies.
Musk is a liar. Maybe he saved some Russians by throttling Ukraine’s Starlink access, maybe he didn’t, but he certainly disabled the defenses protecting a number of Ukrainians who were then killed. These decisions should not be left up to the whims of one man, let alone a man like Musk who consistently displays an utter disregard for anyone else on this planet other than himself.
There is a reason why Musk has become, for Republicans, the largest political donor in the history of the world this election cycle. He knows Republicans will do nothing to hold him accountable.
Don’t let this man further consolidate his grip on power. If you don’t want to live in a world wholly controlled by Elon Musk, voting in this midterm election is probably your last chance to prevent it.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
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