Yesterday it was reported that Elon Musk’s SpaceX says it can’t afford to keep paying for Ukraine’s Starlink service and is asking the Pentagon to pick up the tab going forward.
Musk’s SpaceX says it can no longer pay for critical satellite services in Ukraine, asks Pentagon to pick up the tab.https://t.co/nB1bXGDNSr
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) October 13, 2022
Overnight it was pointed out on Twitter that Musk is doing this after he was told to ‘f— off’ by the Ukrainian Ambassador.
Musk joked “We’re just following his recommendation 🤷♂️”:
We’re just following his recommendation 🤷♂️
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022
Musk further pointed out that they aren’t asking to recoup the money they’ve spent. They just can’t keep funding it indefinitely:
SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022
As far as what they are spending, Musk says it is getting very expensive for SpaceX:
In addition to terminals, we have to create, launch, maintain & replenish satellites & ground stations & pay telcos for access to Internet via gateways.
We’ve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder.
Burn is approaching ~$20M/month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022