Tech billionaire Elon Musk says he wants to continue funding satellite internet for his space company SpaceX in Ukraine. “It doesn’t matter… even if Starlink still loses money and other companies receive billions in taxpayers’ money, we will continue to fund Ukraine for free,” Musk wrote on Twitter over the weekend.
For Ukrainian troops, the use of the Starlink satellite internet service is indispensable in the fight against Russia. Where there is no longer access to mobile communications and the internet due to destroyed infrastructure, it is used by Ukrainian civilians and military as a means of communication.
Threatened with the end of funding
Musk had previously threatened to end the funding. SpaceX does not want reimbursement for past expenses, he wrote on Twitter on Friday. But you can’t “pay for the existing system indefinitely AND ship thousands more endpoints”. Ukraine costs SpaceX around $20 million (€20.58 million) a month.