Sen. Warren demands investigations into Elon Musk’s alleged prevention of Ukrainian attack on Russian fleet.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is demanding an investigation into allegations that billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk hindered Ukrainian military efforts by denying them access to his Starlink satellite internet service for an attack on the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula in September 2022.
“No one should be making foreign policy decisions for the United States except the U.S. government,” Ms. Warren stated in an interview with CNN on Tuesday night. “It is not up to one billionaire to secretly change our foreign policy.”
The Democrat senator’s comments come a week after biographer Walter Isaacson published an excerpt from his new biography about Mr. Musk—titled “Elon Musk”—in which he described Mr. Musk blocking Starlink services around Crimea.
Mr. Isaacson wrote that this decision specifically prevented Ukrainian forces from carrying out an attack on the port of Crimea using six submersible drones and detonating bombs that could have damaged Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
“I believe we need an investigation, both from the Department of Defense and Congress, to examine the arrangement with Elon Musk and his company that would allow him to restrict or deny access to Ukraine or any other country in violation of specific U.S. policies,” Ms. Warren expressed.
Even before Ms. Warren called for an investigation into Starlink and Mr. Musk, the entrepreneur had publicly disputed his biographer’s portrayal of the 2022 Crimea incident.
Initially, Starlink’s services were aimed at helping Ukraine maintain communications during the Russian invasion, which heavily targeted the country’s existing infrastructure.
Mr. Musk insisted that he never enabled coverage around Crimea and that the decision of whether to facilitate the attack on the Black Sea Fleet arose later as an emergency request.
“The responsibility is significantly different if I refused a request from Ukraine versus deliberately changing Starlink to hinder Ukraine,” Mr. Musk stated in a Sept. 8 post on his X social media platform, formerly Twitter.
“At no point did I or anyone at SpaceX promise coverage over Crimea. Furthermore, our terms of service explicitly prohibit Starlink’s use for offensive military actions, as we are a civilian system. Therefore, they were asking for something that was expressly prohibited,” he added.
Correction Issued
After initially publishing the excerpt, Mr. Isaacson made a correction, stating that he misunderstood the incident when discussing it with Mr. Musk.
Instead of claiming that the Starlink mogul had “secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage” around Crimea, Mr. Isaacson retracted that statement in an updated version of the biography excerpt and supported Mr. Musk’s account of the incident.
“What the Ukrainians did not know was that Musk decided not to enable Starlink coverage of the Crimean coast,” Mr. Isaacson wrote in the updated biography excerpt.
“When the Ukrainian military learned that Starlink would not support a successful attack, Musk received frantic calls and texts asking him to enable the coverage. Musk responded that the design of the drones was impressive, but he refused to turn on the coverage for Crimea, arguing that Ukraine ‘is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat.’
In both the original version and the update, Mr. Isaacson mentioned Mr. Musk’s concerns that a Ukrainian attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet could trigger a major, potentially nuclear, response from Russia.
The biographer also noted that Mr. Musk had informed White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley about Ukraine’s request to use Starlink for the attack and reiterated his opposition to Starlink being used for offensive military purposes.
NTD News reached out to Ms. Warren’s office for comments on Mr. Musk’s characterization of the September 2022 incident and Starlink’s policies regarding the use of its services for offensive military actions. As of the publication of this article, the senator’s office has not responded.
Other Musk Ventures Under Scrutiny
This is not the first time Ms. Warren has criticized Mr. Musk’s business practices.
In December, shortly after Mr. Musk acquired Twitter, Ms. Warren wrote to Tesla’s board of directors, expressing concerns that his ownership of the social media platform was diverting his attention from his responsibilities as the CEO of the electric vehicle company.
She specifically questioned how the Tesla board was addressing potential conflicts of interest, allegations of Mr. Musk misusing Tesla’s corporate assets, and “other actions by Mr. Musk that do not appear to be in the best interests of Tesla and its shareholders.”
In her letter to the Tesla board, Ms. Warren also raised concerns about layoffs at Twitter and changes to the platform’s content moderation practices.
“However harmful these actions may be to Twitter’s users and to the nation’s discourse, they are not the concern of the Tesla board,” Ms. Warren’s December 2022 letter reads.
“Your legal responsibility is—as Tesla’s own public commitments state—’to serve as a prudent fiduciary for shareholders and to oversee the management of [Tesla’s] business.’ That responsibility should not be taken lightly.”
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