Elon Musk secretly used control of his Starlink network to cripple a Ukrainian military operation while it was under way, in defiance of American foreign policy.
He is an oligarch working against U.S. interests, benefitting his fellow oligarchs in Russia. His biographer seems to think this is just Musk being Musk, quirky and idiosyncratic.
@JamesGleick His biographer served as a sounding board for this decision -- and withheld information the public should have known at the time, in order to keep it "fresh" for the book. Reprehensible on so many levels.
@JamesGleick the only way ELON survives this is if the gop supports him. AND DUDES WITH abortion killing them with trump four indictment killing them with good economy killing them with jan 6 haunting them. YOU THINK GOP is GOING TO RISK their cushy jobs for elon. NO WAY HE'S OUT OF TOUCH EVEN WITH the out of touch. trump won't touch him working for putin he'll goss over that one...trump don't take one for nobody...it's over elon you fucked up.
@JamesGleick everyone is accepting this very uncritically. Musk is a self-aggrandising asshole. I believe he nerfed Starlink in Crimea. It seems very unlikely that he pulled the plug specifically to thwart an ongoing top-secret mission in real time.
@JamesGleick Musk should be investigated as a Russian intelligence asset immediately. It seems clear that he actively and directly assisted the Russian Military and helped them support their invasion of Ukraine.
@JamesGleick "Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled 'Elon Musk.'
"As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they 'lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,' Isaacson writes."
@steviesyerda Do I really need to explain? Those (Murdoch and the Kochs) are also oligarchs—prime examples. They are people who exercise political power by virtue of their wealth. They convert riches into control over their fellow citizens. They compete with, subvert, and replace legitimate governments.
@JamesGleick thanks, I just wanted to highlight exactly that point, the language of "oligarchs" is political and the inference of criminality and corruption applies to pretty much every billionaire anywhere
@steviesyerda I would agree that no billionaire “deserves” their wealth, but not all billionaires exercise political power. I don’t think George Soros does, though he donates much of his wealth to certain causes. Nor do I think Warren Buffett does. We don’t need to call them oligarchs, though we should tax them more aggressively.
Yup. No billionaire deserves their wealth for the simple reason that no matter how genius, visionary, or creative a person may be, it is not possible for a individual human being to single-handedly contribute a medium-sized country’s worth of value to the economy
The fact that they are compensated as such just proves that “free” markets are quite often terrible arbiters of value and shows why aggressive taxation to redistribute unmerited wealth is necessary
"His biographer seems to think this is just Musk being Musk, quirky and idiosyncratic."
Because his biographer is and always has been a sycophantic lickspittle apologist for wealth and power, operating under the thin disguise of being a "journalist."
Time that he faces legal consequences, /s: but, oh wait, most governments globally are afraid of #Elmo, b/c he already controls 50% of global satellite communications, also necessary for modern warfare, thanks to #TFG and #Biden did not stop it.
As you make your bed, so you must lie in it. /s
@JamesGleick using a private telecommunications satellite maliciously to provoke an international war - that is literally the villain’s plot in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.
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