After days of outrage from Ukrainians over the revelation that Elon Musk thwarted a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s naval fleet in Crimea last year, the SpaceX CEO says U.S. sanctions are to blame for the move.
Speaking at the All-In Summit on Tuesday, Musk said he would have needed direct approval from the Biden administration to enable Starlink satellite communications for the sneak attack.
“At the time this happened, the [satellite network in the] region around Crimea, um, was actually turned off. Now the reason it was turned off… actually originally it was because the United States had sanctions against Crimea, and we were not allowed to actually turn on connectivity, without explicit government approval,” he said. “So, um, basically Ukraine didn’t give us any advanced warning or heads up or anything, we just got the sort of urgent calls from the Ukrainian government saying we needed to turn on Crimea.”
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He went on to say that while he is not President Joe Biden’s “biggest fan,” he would’ve turned the system on “if I had received a presidential directive” to do so.
“The Ukrainian government is not in charge of U.S. people or companies. That’s not how it works,” he said to raucous applause from the audience of the tech conference, before going on to blast the “absurd accusations” that his decision may have been motivated by a cozy relationship with the Russian government.
“They were really asking us to proactively take part in a major act of war,” he said of Ukrainian leadership. His comments come after his biographer, Walter Isaacson, also sought to clarify details on the Starlink fiasco, stressing on X that “the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea” but “it was not.”
An excerpt of the book published by The Washington Post initially claimed Musk had ordered SpaceX engineers to “turn off” the satellite network, but it was later amended to note that version of events had “mischaracterized” what really happened. Musk also said he had been warned by the Russian ambassador to the U.S. that any attack by Ukraine on Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014, would trigger a nuclear response, according to the book.
While Musk was seen as a staunch ally of Ukraine in the early days of Moscow’s full-scale war, he’s faced mounting allegations recently of sucking up to the Kremlin, sparking outrage with a proposed “peace plan” that would see Ukraine give up Crimea and shrugging off concerns about the spread of Russian propaganda on his X platform. He’s even won praise directly from Vladimir Putin, who on Tuesday described Musk as an “outstanding person” and a “talented businessman.”
