The Pentagon disclosed that it signed a contract to provide SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, nearly eight months after Elon Musk, the company’s mercurial owner, threatened to terminate access unless the U.S. government paid for it.
in a report released earlier this week that the social media company may have lost two-thirds of its value.
Officials with SpaceX did not respond to an email requesting comment about the contract, which was first reported by Bloomberg. Musk did not respond to questions when contacted through Twitter.Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Starlink has become a lifeline for its government, armed forces and other essential operations such as hospitals.
“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,” Musk wrote then, adding, “This is unreasonable.”“The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt free,” he.
SpaceX had previously cast the provision of terminals as a humanitarian gesture, and has offered Starlink to other countries after disasters. But the United States Agency for International Development also has purchased some Starlink equipment and paid to send it to Ukraine, according to documents
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