Elon Musk, Chief Govt Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, looks to be like on as he attends the Viva Technology convention dedicated to innovation and startups on the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, June 16, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Creator Walter Isaacson took to social media to try and “elaborate” an excerpt from his upcoming e-book, “Elon Musk.” The excerpt obtained swift backlash after it described how Musk thwarted a Ukrainian attack on Russian warships.
Isaacson’s e-book claims that Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, ordered engineers to shut off Starlink’s satellite community over Crimea remaining 12 months in exclaim to disrupt a Ukrainian military initiative. Musk’s Starlink terminals arrived in the early days of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as Western governments worked to present Kyiv with artillery and air protection programs.
Musk finally soured on the affiliation and stated “Starlink was no longer meant to be though-provoking in wars,” consistent with the e-book. The tech billionaire told Isaacson he was fearful the Ukrainian attack on Russian vessels would provoke the Kremlin into launching a nuclear war.
However in a put up on X, beforehand identified as Twitter, gradual Friday, Isaacson shared novel small print.
“To elaborate on the Starlink field: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled the total methodology to Crimea, but it was no longer,” Isaacson wrote. “They requested Musk to permit it for his or her drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did now not allow it, on story of he conception, potentially precisely, that can trigger a main war.”
Crimea is a peninsula on the Murky Sea that Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and it is a long way dwelling to Russia’s Murky Sea warships. Within the times following Russia’s beefy-scale invasion in February 2022, the Murky Sea fleet fired missiles on as soon as-industrious Ukrainian coastal cities while imposing a devastating naval blockade.
Isaacson went further in a second put up on Saturday, asserting that he “mistakenly” conception Musk made the choice to shut off Starlink’s satellite community on the evening of the attack.
“Based utterly on my conversations with Musk, I mistakenly conception the coverage to no longer allow Starlink to be broken-down for an attack on Crimea had been first decided on the evening of the Ukrainian attempted sneak attack that evening,” Isaacson stated. “He now says that the coverage had been implemented earlier, however the Ukrainians did now not comprehend it, and that evening he merely reaffirmed the coverage.”
Isaacson’s X posts got here after a top aide to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out at Musk over the excerpt.
“By no longer allowing Ukrainian drones to abolish section of the Russian military fleet by project of Starlink interference, Elon Musk allowed this fleet to fireplace Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities,” Mykhailo Podolyak wrote Thursday on social media after CNN reported on a few of the small print from Isaacson’s e-book.
“This implies that, civilians, children are being killed. That is the imprint of a cocktail of lack of understanding and mountainous ego,” he added.
Isaacson’s complete e-book is slated for originate on Tuesday.
Read the beefy excerpt about Starlink and Ukraine in the Washington Post.
— CNBC’s Amanda Macias contributed to this file.
