Comment by delichon

5 days ago 

  Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS. Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2110445577184133456

30 comments

delichon

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Neywiny  5 days ago

What's great about this is the are 2 ways to read this:

1. Ukraine is in an offensive position

2. Ukraine is in a defensive position and thus it was indeed Musk

To me these are both very dumb stances. Lose lose statement

  • mrec  5 days ago

    I read it as being more specific than one overarching "position". Long-range strike drones are arguably "offensive action" even in a clearly defensive war, interceptor drones are clearly "defensive action". Midrange strike against targets in occupied Ukrainian territory are a bit of a grey area.

    Of course, Starlink/Starshield is already unavailable for long-range strike due to geofencing, and the speed limit was clobbering interceptors right when they needed that speed to cope with the new jet-powered Gerans, so it's still a daft stance overall.

    • rasz  5 days ago

      >Midrange strike against targets in occupied Ukrainian territory are a bit of a grey area.

      Nothing grey about destroying invading army on your own territory.

      >speed limit was clobbering interceptors

      That version never passed the smell test, interceptors dont use Starlink.

      5 replies →

dyslexit  5 days ago

Wall Street Journal has reported this was ordered by Musk directly:

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-starlink-elon-musk-trump-d...

Not sure why so many people here are defending him as though his word is authoritative. The guy's as big a liar as Donald Trump.

  • Dig1t  4 days ago

    It obviously came from Trump via Musk.

    Ukraine has been striking Russian refineries, reducing global diesel supply which is already being squeezed by the stupid war in Iran.

    Musk gains nothing from disabling Starlink for strike missions inside of Russia. Trump absolutely does benefit from them since his admin is bearing the blame of invading Iran and it’s killing him in the midterms.

darksaints  5 days ago

Hilarious that you believe words that come out of Musk’s mouth. How embarrassing.

  • christophilus  5 days ago

    Well, even the worst people say true things from time to time. In this case, it seems true. The US dictates how US tech is used, and this particular technology is of military significance, so I’m inclined to believe it.

    • notahacker  5 days ago

      The complicating factor is that whilst it's certainly true that Starshield answers to the US chain of command, not to Elon and highly unlikely he is authorised to exercise any direct control of it, the claims that Elon personally spoke to the guy at the top of the US chain of command and persuaded him that this would be a good idea are pretty credible (and whether credible or not, US officials have been trying to place the blame on Elon rather than their own chain of command). Plus of course Ukraine absolutely does use regular Starlink, and Elon doesn't actually have magic ability to tell which terminals are being used for offensive operations and which for defensive

    • fatbird  5 days ago

      His statement is all generalities. "Decisions are made by POTUS". Not "This decision was made by POTUS"--that part you're supposed to infer from the previous. He's being quite careful not to address this instance.

  • hbarka  5 days ago

    Someone needs to ask Musk how much the Roadster car shell weighed during the flying demo. Then ask for an estimate when they will do a genuine demo with a 2000lb battery.