What an utter piece of shit.
But the truly galaxy brain move is in this article:
After CNN’s reporting, Musk reversed course, tweeting “the hell with it … we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”
Gwynne Shotwell, Musk’s president at SpaceX, was livid at Musk’s reversal, according to Isaacson.
“The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally,” Isaacson quotes Shotwell as saying. “Then Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story.”
Musk confirmed idiot
but he has money, thus he is extra super smart!
Worthington’s Law!
That has been confirmed many times before this.
Eh, he got another 100,000 subscribers out of it.
Is this not treason? Like legitimately, technically.
Treason is very narrowly defined in US law. The US is not at war with Russia, and the US is not Ukraine, so no, it’s not.
Sedition?
Also no. Americans do not legally owe any loyalty to the Ukrainian government.
as EU members but somehow, they decided to mess with Russia and we, EU citizen, were taken in this sh*.
As an EU citizen, I fully support EU’s “messing” with Russia to support Ukraine, and I thank our NATO allies for keeping us “in this sh*”.
HAHA, nobody would say that, NO ONE except maybe if you have a relative in UA, still…
It’s easy to argue on internet but IRL, this pseudo unconditional support does not exist.
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Nope, he wasn’t trying to overthrow the government of country he is a citizen of. He could be considered a non state actor though.
Enemy combatant? I’m running out of words here?
The Ukrainians can certainly call him that.
Notable examples of Non State Actors are: Blackwater(American security company) Wagner (Russian).
Weird “enemy” who’s actively supporting 99% of one’s war efforts.
By that rule of thumb, would the US be an “enemy” for being reluctant to supply latest gen weaponry to Ukraine?
Are you compelled by neurodiversity to be pedantic? Or do you just enjoy it?
How is the difference between “supporting in almost everything” vs. “attacking”, a pedantic one?
Again. The US government is not the Ukrainian government.
The most painful thing the government could do would be to sanction Musk and his companies for taking actions counter to US foreign policy prerogatives, but then Musk would just pull the plug on Starlink altogether. So nothing will be done.
Seeing as musk could unilaterally act in a fashion contrary to US foreign policy, in the interest of national security the government should take control of the company then.
Obviously that would be an extreme step but… how bad would that get?
That’s basically a variant of eminent domain, but I suspect it would be a hard case to argue. Ukraine chose to use Starlink, and the US governments power to invoke eminent domain is based on the common good provided to the US public via the seized property. It’s arguable whether the US public would see much if any value from the US government running Starlink unless they’re going to start providing free service to US citizens. There’s also the problem that there are plenty of other options that don’t require seizing of property.
The US could just nationalise it. SpaceX is basically running on government money anyway, just fold it into NASA.
NASA is basically being forced by Congress to funnel SLS program money into select contractors against NASA’s own assessments. I don’t think you want any of their hands near SpaceX if you want it to stay operational.
It may be a violation of the Logan Act, which makes it illegal for private citizens to interfere with foreign relations.
The Logan Act deals with private citizens negotiating with foreign governments. Unless he fucked with Starlink at the direct request of the Russian gov’t, I don’t see how the Logan Act applies. EDIT: apparently he did it after speaking with Russian government officials. So never mind, Logan Act is absolutely implicated.
*Foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. I don’t think this qualifies. Unfortunately.
That 76 billion in aid was just for funsies, nothing to do with Russia.
What’s your point? We’re still not in a dispute with Russia. A proxy dispute, maybe, but we’re not in active conflict with them.
I’m on your side! Elon is a fuckwit and Russia is run by a despot but I don’t think the Logan act applies
Dispute like actively sanctioning them? That kind of dispute?
I don’t know the legal definition of dispute but it seems to me a very loose term. Even more so than conflict or otherwise.
Me either but I think a dispute would involve our military directly.
Against Ukraine certainly, but since he’s not a citizen of Ukraine, then no. If these were US forces that he sabotaged, or the US was actually fighting in the war then it would also qualify, but once again that doesn’t apply. It definitely runs counter to US foreign interests, but that’s not enough to qualify (and probably good it doesn’t, a LOT of stuff people regularly do it could be argued would run counter to US foreign interests).
This reeks of espionage. With a slight hint of war crimes?
He did this with federal funds. And the US hasn’t declared war since, what, WW2? The Rosenbergs were executed for treason, and we never declared war with USSR.
He did not actually do it with federal funds. These were donated Starlink terminals and service was paid for by SpaceX.
That’s the whole point, the US government allowed civilian technology to be used in war by a foreign government.
The Rosenbergs were executed for treason
Espionage, actually.
I don’t know the legal definition of espionage but sure as hell seems like elons loyalty lies outside of the US.
Elon’s loyalty lies with Elon. It’s never been otherwise.
The Rosenbergs were convicted on espionage charges. They were sending classified info to the USSR. That’s different from treason although it’s related. The funding angle is an interesting question though. It still wouldn’t be treason, but it could qualify as… breach of contract maybe? Not sure exactly what the charge is when the government pays you for a service and you don’t fullfill the service in a satisfactory manner.
Would this not be espionage? Or would he have to have been acting under the direction of a state actor?
Espionage would require providing confidential intel to a foreign power. As far as I’m aware he didn’t share any intel, merely disabled the internet service he was providing within key areas. Even then, leaking Unkranian intel to Russia while arguably espionage against Ukraine would likely not qualify. He would need to provide confidential US material to Russia (or another foreign power) for it to be espionage.
Espionage can also encompass acts of sabotage, there are ways this could qualify if it was American forces affected. It’s also a glaring example of why many countries maintain state share in major defence companies. No idiot scrolling conspiracy theories on Twitter should be able to not only breach operational security, which he clearly was since he knew the operation was underway, but also sabotage it.
This was not sabotage, Ukraine was violating the terms of service of Starlink.
Uh… People from Vietnam, Korea, and Afganistan would like to differ. (not an exclusive list).
Ok! They’d be objectively wrong, but yeah, differ away!
Although a bit irrelevant to the discussion about treason, I had to giggle at the WW2 bit. A simpler statistic would be when the US was not at war.
It’s mostly a semantics game. The US is involved in military conflicts all the time, but those are not officially “wars”, since the US going to war requires Congress to officially declare it. Therefore anytime the US was involved in a military conflict, but Congress did not issue a formal declaration of war, the US was not technically at war. He is correct in that the last time that Congress formally declared war was WW2.
However, all that said, that’s just silly semantic games, everyone understands that if the US deploys military forces against another nations military forces that is in fact war, and on that metric the US has had many wars since WW2.
Oh I get it, but we all know the definition is bullshit
“Declared”
He did this with federal funds
Apparently this was before he got federal funds.
Didn’t he get subsidies for spaceX and Tesla?
Tesla got some preferential loans in 2010, it paid them off by 2013. Now it benefits from buyers of any brand electric car getting subsidies… so, “kind of”?
SpaceX got government contracts for specific services… which could have been inflated or not, but didn’t include Starlink (at least not officially).
This is different from direct subsidies like those given to Boeing, which also gets inflated contracts (see NASA’s SLS), but in addition gets preferential tax discounts and lowered export taxes.
This has nothing to do with being Ukrainian, but everything to do with being American, and actively working against American interests and official national and White house policies.
He is actively working against the support USA is providing, and has paid him for, and has ordered him not to sabotage or diminish.
This is treason, which is logical, since Elon Musk is a Trump supporter and they are both traitors and Elon Musk is a pedophile Nazi.
While I think we can all agree that it’s treasonous or at least treason adjacent, it however does not meet the specific legal definition of Treason used by the US. Like most of the rich and powerful he’s threading legal loopholes to do what he wants without actually violating the letter of any laws while simultaneously stomping all over the spirit of them. There’s a strong argument to be made that he is committing sabotage against Ukraine, but once again that’s not technically illegal in the US. I don’t even think Ukraine has an extradition treaty with the US, so even if Musk was charged and convicted in Ukraine, there isn’t really anything they could do about it.
At the end of the day, Ukraine fucked up by trusting and relying on a private contractor for their critical infrastructure. They were in a bind and needed a solution so they leapt at the first one that was dangled in front of them, but it was a hasty decision that has bitten them in the long run. For better or worse there’s a reason that no nation relies on infrastructure they don’t control for military support, and it’s exactly this situation. Even if the hardware was manufactured by a contractor, they would make sure their country was the ones in control of it. Starlink should have been at best an emergency stopgap while Ukraine found another long term solution specifically because it puts their military at the mercy of the whims of a foreign national (not to mention the operational security nightmare where now they have a private US corporation able to literally watch and track their military movements in real time).
Elon Musk is a pedophile Nazi.
While I think Musk is a slimy piece of shit that’s made a career out of stealing credit for other peoples ideas, this might be going too far.
While I think Musk is a slimy piece of shit that’s made a career out of stealing credit for other peoples ideas, this might be going too far.
Pedophile is something Elon Musk himself apparently finds it appropriate to call people he disagree with. So I call him a pedophile because I disagree with him.
A Nazi is because he has shown quite a bit of Nazi like opinions and sympathies.
Here he is literally using Nazi imagery: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-shared-twitter-meme-nazi-soldier-image-2022-11?r=US&IR=T
Also I think it’s fair to call Russia a Nazi regime, and Musk has shown several times he sympathizes with Russia, and he has used Russian talking points about Ukraine.
Same goes for Trump and his very clear Russian sympathies and connections, and Elon Musk is a Trump supporter.
So all in all, it’s seems to me absolutely fair to call Elon Musk a pedophile Nazi. It’s not a title I generally use about other people, only Elon Musk, because he deserves that title 100%.
The US government never paid him to provide military service in Ukraine.
It’s cute how if Ukraine fights back that risks nuclear war, but when Russia invades a sovereign country it doesn’t
Elon is a Russian bitch just like the rest of the billionaires.
Elon is not the president, a leader, the military, nor a government. This parasite should be in a prison or a brig at the very least. This is fucking treason.
*Out of loyalty to Putin
This is a great article on the subject posted recently:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
Time to nationalize Starlink
If he’s not careful the US will simply nationalize SpaceX. It’s not going to happen in the next couple of years, but this kind of shit will cause it to happen eventually.
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Smells like a war crime to me
“How am I in this war?” Musk asked Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”
Lol, this from the guy that literally turned his satellites off on purpose to influence a war. This guy has poo brain.
War-related crime maybe, but I don’t think this is against any Geneva Conventions
If true, my respect for Musk just dropped a … well, none at all. It would be totally in character.
I don’t know why he gave them internet in first place. UA infrastructures are not impacted, you can even watch TV or IPTV.
Can we recall that only the north east border of Ukraine is under attack, can’t we ?
I’ll take the bait:
- wireless communications can be and are disrupted in several different ways in a warzone. Targeting cell towers, active jamming, interception of messages are all huge concerns and all are solved with Starlink
- wired communications are useless on frontlines for (I hope) obvious reasons
- Quite a lot of the fighting happens in relatively sparsely populated countryside
- And even if we assume cell range is everywhere on land… there’s none at sea.
- All of it and more is solved by Starlink. While Russians learned how to interfere with it eventually, for some time it was near-invincible comms and still brings huge value.
Buuut… In the end Musk gave UA such a wide access to Starlink because the US and UA authorities paid for it a fat coin and most likely followed the payment with an offer he could not refuse. Until China or Russia eventually launch their own internet constellations, the US has a massive edge over literally anyone else and can grant this edge to anyone without it being controversial. Unlike sending military gear which took a while to become reality and was a delicate diplomatic matter, sending a truckload of receivers with access keys taped on them is basic shopping for UA and just a blip in export statistic for the US
the US and UA authorities paid for it a fat coin
They didn’t, at least not officially until way into the war.
“Papa puta is happy with muskreek. Papa puta promised not to press death button, muskreek is hero! Why people angry with muskreek papa puta?” - The best model science can build of musk’s current thought process
Any system capable of manipulating the outcomes of international conflict needs to become property of the government via eminent domain…especially if that system is used…especially if used by an entrepreneur operating without oversight.
