Remember when Elon Musk shut down Starlink around Ukraine a few months ago because he was shitty about the US government sucking him in to covering the costs? According to an excerpt from his own biography (written by Walter Isaacson, due for release next week), that shutdown was actually "driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk's conversations with senior Russian officials". After that conversation he ordered SpaceX engineers to turn off the network above the warzone, thwarting a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's naval fleet. Musk re-enabled Starlink once the US and EU paid for a huge bulk order of 100,000 terminals. We all know Musk is a dumb motherfucker, so I am not surprised he got finessed by a slick talking Russian spy a conference to do their bidding while making him feel like he is some sort of peace crusader.
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