ELON MUSK, UP IN SMOKE
October 8. 2022 -Durt Fibo

Some people have too much time to sit around and smoke marijuana. Elon Musk has now pronounced his solution to unpacific roilings in the Pacific: hand over part of Taiwan to China. Through his musky cloud came the inspiration: “My recommendation would be to imagine a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably attractive. It probably won’t make everyone happy … but it’s possible, indeed I think likely, that they can have a deal that’s more lenient than Hong Kong’s.”

Musk’s proposed solution came just five days after he gnawed on Twitter that the war in Ukraine could be settled by letting Russia keep the Crimea Peninsula it seized in 2014, Ukraine adopt a neutral status –dropping a bid to join NATO, and that four Ukrainian regions Russia ‘annexed’ should repeat their referendums as organized by the United Nations.

In between those two statements, reports came tumbling out of Ukraine that the Starlink communications systems Musk had provided to the country were failing, and in many urgent and dangerous instances, had ceased to work at all right as Ukrainian forces were advancing with the reconquest of Russian-seized territory.

One possible explanation is that Starlink functions had been previously set to geoblock functionality in what was at the time Russian controlled areas. This would mean that Ukrainian forces were moving into those areas faster than the geoblocking could be reset. However, neither explanations nor remedies have yet come from Starlink. Which leaves another possible cause: the malfunction is to some degree the result of a petulant centibillionaire whose ‘peace proposal’ was met with obscenities by Ukraine officials. Starlink has not yet responded to Ukraine’s announcing the breakdown.

Quite early in the war, Musk made great publicity from dispatching his Starlink terminals to aid Ukraine, and by August the world was given to understand that the parent company, Space X, had donated around 3,670. Now there appears to be no evidence that even one was donated.

As early as April, technology journalists were telling publications such as The Washington Post that the US government –amongst others– was actually purchasing the systems from Musk. Investigative reporters followed up and discovered documentation clarifying that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had already bought 1,330 Starlink terminals and paid for their delivery. SpaceX’s Starlink retails for $600 and charges $110 a month for service; USAID paid $1,500 apiece for terminals.

The remaining ‘donations’ were actually purchases from Starlink, made by other groups, all the way down to small crowdfunding efforts. In March SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC that most of the funding for Starlink terminals purchased for Ukraine came from private sources.

What a week for pipe dreams! Leaving aside Elon’s Taiwan policy breakthrough, summing up Musk and the Ukrainian situation, I recommend that if he truly wants to end the war, he should just buy Russia.