In September, SpaceX despatched a letter to the Department of Defense, asking the Pentagon to take over paying for the bills associated to Ukraine’s use of its Starlink satellite tv for pc web. According to CNN, SpaceX advised the division that persevering with to supply the Ukranian authorities with entry to Starlink would value the corporate over $120 million for the remainder of 2022 and nearly $400 million over the following 12 months. “We will not be ready to additional donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the present terminals for an indefinite time frame,” the corporate wrote. Now, firm chief Elon Musk appears to have backtracked on the choice to ask the Pentagon for help and wrote on Twitter that SpaceX will “hold funding [the] Ukraine [government] without spending a dime” although Starlink continues to be dropping cash.
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Musk confirmed what he mentioned in his tweet to The Financial Times and added that SpaceX will proceed funding Ukraine’s entry to Starlink’s satellite tv for pc web “indefinitely.”
When information in regards to the letter got here out, Musk defended his firm’s place and clarified that SpaceX just isn’t asking the Pentagon to pay for earlier bills. He defined that SpaceX merely cannot fund the present system in Ukraine and usually ship hundreds of latest terminals to interchange those routinely destroyed by the Russian forces on the similar time. Musk added that the “burn” for holding the Starlink system operating within the nation is $20 million a month, because it’s needed to “defend towards cyberattacks and jamming,” as properly.
Earlier this month, The Times reported that Ukrainian troops grappled with Starlink outages that led to “catastrophic” lack of communication on the frontline. Musk responded that the piece “falsely claims that Starlink terminals [and] service have been paid for, when solely a small share have been.” Based on SpaceX’s letter that CNN had obtained, although, round 85 p.c of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine on the time have been totally or partially funded by the US, the UK, Poland and different outdoors sources.
The Pentagon confirmed after data of the letter grew to become public that it has been discussing funds with SpaceX however that it is also been potential options. Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, mentioned in an announcement: “There’s not simply SpaceX, there are different entities that we will definitely companion with in terms of offering Ukraine with what they want on the battlefield.”