Ukraine Update: This is why Musk owns us all

[ancianita]

Now comes the former liberal, Elon. Sure, we saw him coming.

Sumner's right and we all agree: Elon's an asshole. And Sumner's not wrong about all the rest. Oh sure, that Elon plans for 45,000 satellites that can provide high speed internet access to every person on Earth, no matter where they are located, is badass.

STILL. Mark Sumner's take of 'the Elon problem' sounds eerily official.

... Last week, we learned that Musk personally intervened to cut off communications to areas in Ukraine to thwart an attack that was intended to sink Russian warships docked off occupied Crimea. That attack could have played a significant role in determining the outcome of the war. On Friday, Musk admitted that he took direct action to prevent communications in the area of the attack, which reportedly left Ukrainian drone ships floating helplessly. Some of those ships washed ashore near the Russian fleet and were studied by Russian authorities eager to block future attacks.

The Russian Black Sea fleet has fired hypersonic missiles into civilian structures across Ukraine, resulting in some of the most horrific war crimes of Russia’s unprovoked, illegal invasion. Those attacks continue today due to the decision of one man.

Musk pretends that by preventing Ukraine from using the communications gear they had mostly purchased, that he was refusing to play a role in a military attack. But he played a role. He chose sides. He chose to protect the Russian warships because, he claims, he believed Russian propaganda about a nuclear threat.

Musk chose to put his own opinion over not just the strategy, but the lives of Ukrainians. They are still paying for his decision—in blood.

Perhaps most astonishingly, just two months after Musk decided to pull the plug on that attack, SpaceX announced the “Starshield” service, which it advertises as featuring "additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads and process data securely, meeting the most demanding government requirements.”

How many governments will trust Musk to host their secure communications when he has already demonstrated a willingness to become a one-man arbiter of who wins or loses a war?

Yet Musk’s actions in Ukraine with Starlink are just a fraction of the issue. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have already given SpaceX an enormous edge over its competitors. Unless something changes to alter the market radically in just the next couple of years, Musk's ability to dictate to governments through his monopoly control of access to space will grow exponentially.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/10/2192330/-Ukraine-Update-This-is-why-Musk-owns-us-all


Might as well throw in the recent New Yorker profile, too.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule

We've lived in slow roll shock as a stealth oligarch class has rolled out its horrifying world views to the rest of us through government and tech.

So until a quantum run General AI (with a pro-human life core directive) can act to redistribute all world oligarchs' wealth to end poverty worldwide, I'd prefer reading profiles of the rest of the otherwise secretive oligarch class as a worthwhile subgenre of publishing.
Better to know what oligarchs are really up to out there than to not know.

[dem4decades]

1. How does the US government allow this? We're done, it's fucking over.

We are just like Russia, drink vodka to make life bearable.

[ancianita]

3. How? I'm supposing it's about money and poor past leadership.

Last edited Sun Sep 10, 2023, 06:23 PM - Edit history (1)

Good thing vodka is my go-to alcohol.

I won't give up on our government yet, though. Just looking at the last two days, we know that Main Justice is doing what it can to keep corruption at bay.


https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr

[dem4decades]

6. Thank God for Costco, at least my pain relief is affordable.

[ancianita]

16. I can't drink. Cheaper for me to just take a break and binge watch more of Virgin River.

I love the show's multiple plotting about a flawed community that still have each other's back.

[dem4decades]

28. I'll check it out thanks.

[DenaliDemocrat]

19. Because Capitalism...

No different than for-profit prison.

[Disaffected]

2. That Musk is a dick is not news.

I'm wondering why Ukraine put their faith in Starlink rather than using the GPS or Galileo systems for their drone navigation purposes.

Are the Orks jamming them over Ukraine? If so, do they not have the capability to jam Starlink as well?

[ancianita]

4. Sure. But he's a complicated dick.

Starlink has also given Ukraine Internet access for most of its time at war. The Pentagon has admitted it can't, and why our government hasn't been able to do more comms and space satellite launching than this oligarch says a lot about its inertia. This govt can afford what it wants to afford, rethug budget threats notwithstanding.

[area51]

15. "This govt can afford what it wants to afford ...."

THIS.

[KPN]

21. Beat me to it.

[brush]

5. Musk is a real life James Bond villain. Right up Ian Fleming's line.

The right wing fucker is a private citizen, not a sovereign nation-state, playing geopolitics and affecting an on-going war. He's a US citizen now byw.

The DOJ and congress should be taking action against him for meddling in international affairs.

[ancianita]

8. He could be investigated for violating anything related to FARA, I'm thinking.

[brush]

12. Good call...he's certainly acting in Russia's interests.

[ancianita]

13. Well, that decision could have been a one-off. As I've said elsewhere,

Matthew Olsen from the DOJ, along with someone from the FBI's counterintel, should have had a sitdown with him by now.

https://www.justice.gov/nsd/staff-profile/assistant-attorney-general-matthew-g-olsen

[Lonestarblue]

7. Does the US government not have an alternative to Starlink? Or have we so privatized

government functions that it is now loon like Elon who are determining what happens in foreign wars? I don’t really know what the US has or doesn’t have, but this seems extremely risky.

[ancianita]

11. Read the articles. It doesn't. The Pentagon's privatized so much of its post WWII capacity,

that by now we shouldn't be surprised to read of its weakened capabilities in those areas.

Yes, it all seems risky. It literally pisses me off to no end (and to even write this!) that the very Big Tech in our Pentagon's cyber war rooms -- Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle -- also actually kowtow to Beijing to put back doors in their devices' software, as they continue to do business in China.

These Big Four call it Warfighting Cloud Capability, but it's the stuff of war rooms, since the Pentagon will have to have many of the Big Four's engineers, strategists to go with the infrastructure, along with its own Cyber Command, and those from our 3-letter agencies.

But to also do what Beijing tells them? Talk about conflicts of interest!

On the positive side, Google's co-founder, Sergei Brin, ordered Google out of China after he learned of Beijing's hacking of Gmail accounts.

[Liberal In Texas]

9. Here's a prime example of why we shouldn't be privatizing things like space exploration

or our water and power supplies. It's not a question of if some billionaire will want to turn off the spigot or hold us hostage to some whim but when it will happen. Apparently, Muskrat already has decided his world view is more important than an elected governments.

[Evolve Dammit]

10. If we, as a nation, allow this subversion to continue unabated, we are fucked. nt

[ancianita]

14. For another angle on Musk, biographer extraordinaire, Walter Isaacson, has written a latest

biography of Elon, having spent several years by his side. Here Isaacson gives his opinions of the man and his view of risk averse government.

Start 00:50

[Roy Rolling]

17. "Privatization"

Cut taxes so low on rich assholes they can afford their own space program (and eventually military).

The reward for cutting taxes is that those same asshole billionaires will create beneficial industries, commerce, and jobs.

But why would they do that when bigger assholes like Saudi Arabia pay them more money to say “fuck you” to the USA?

It’s just the business of privatization. Sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.

[ancianita]

18. Amen. Exactly.

Neoliberal policies and taxation made these people more powerful than most governments.

They think they're above jurisdictional control. Elon's talked directly to Putin at length.

I also remember reading in the New Yorker how, when the head of the FAA told Elon "You're NOT cleared for launch," Elon launched anyway, or he'd go broke (so he says now). That right there says a lot about oligarchs feel they're above the law. Right now, Elon's doing what the FAA tells him, but how long that lasts, who knows.

[Snackshack]

20. No one person.

Should have this much power. period/full stop.

I do not care about any argument concerning capitalism, free market, stifling innovation etc, etc.

This does not have the acute danger allowing the privatization of water in South America by a corporations but it will very soon. We already view the internet as a utility almost, we could go back to living w/o it but that is not going to happen as long as we can generate electricity.

Allowing 1 person to have this much power over connectivity, communications…literally the life and death of 1000’s if not millions is simply ludicrous and every bit as insane as allowing 1 person to own their own personal nuclear stockpile or bio weapons lab with samples of Smallpox, Ebola, VX…it is simply…insane

It is not like we don’t have volumes of documented history re-telling the same tell over and over on how 1 person tried to bring the world down with them and now Elon can.

This must not be allowed to continue and if that meant a complete take over of Space X by NASA and Star Link by NASA or some other global governing body so be it. The intervention he has already admitted to in Russia behalf is not going to be a one off event.

[ancianita]

22. Totally with you. I especially like your idea of a govt takeover of Space X and Starlink.

Last edited Sun Sep 10, 2023, 07:58 PM - Edit history (1)

How that could legally happen might only be through some governmental findings that could allow its gaining control of this private enterprise. Elon would fight it beyond the Supreme Court, possibly shut it down before he'd let govt nationalize it.

Because the US government already owns corporations!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_the_United_States

List of partially or wholly federally owned enterprises

Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)[1]
Community Development Financial Institutions Fund[2]
Corporation for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps)[2]
Export-Import Bank of the United States[3]
Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation[4]

Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC)
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Federal Farm Credit Banks Funding Corporation
Federal Financing Bank (FFB)[5]
Federal Home Loan Banks[6]

Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac)
Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae)
Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR)[7]
Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae)[8]
Legal Services Corporation[9]

Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)
National Cooperative Bank[10]
National Corporation for Housing Partnerships (NCHP); Washington, D.C.
National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)
National Credit Union Administration Central Liquidity Facility (CLF)

National Endowment for Democracy[11]
National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak)
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation[12]
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Presidio Trust[13]

Resolution Funding Corporation[13]
St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation
Securities Investor Protection Corporation[14]
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
U.S. International Development Finance Corporation

United States African Development Foundation
United States Postal Service[13]
YRC Worldwide (30% stake)[15]

[Sessuch]

23. Why isn"t Musk sanctioned for aiding Russia?

[ancianita]

24. I don't know. That's something the Justice Dept and FBI could answer.

It's likely that as a business owner, Elon believes he has conducted business for his own interests and those of the US, from what I've gathered. It's the US Treasury that imposes sanctions. How it could sanction an American oligarch is an interesting question. Our govt would have to prove why he should be sanctioned. If it can, it definitely should.

On the other hand, sanctions on Elon might adversely affect Starlink's benefits to Ukraine. Which we're now paying him for, under contract. I just wouldn't want to see Ukraine's Starlink comm capability hurt by our sanctions.

[Trueblue Texan]

25. Maybe Elon is an AI Bot? nt

[ancianita]

26. Ugh. If only.

This is from last year. So, for all we know he's already developed his humanoid bot.

Yes, we understand the name [Optimus] sounds more like a Transformers bot and we're super excited to see what it can do.

The Tesla CEO said during an interview at Qatar Economic Forum that an Optimus prototype would be ready in three months, according to the New York Post.

While speaking at the forum, the tech genius said: “Well, I hope that we will have an interesting prototype to show people.

“We have a very talented team at Tesla that I’m working with closely to have a prototype humanoid robot ready by the end of September.

“And I think we are tracking to that point.”

https://www.ladbible.com/news/latest-elon-says-his-ai-humanoid-robot-will-be-ready-in-september-20220624

[Happy Hoosier]

27. Nationalize Space-X

Elon Musk cannot be trusted.

[Josiesdad]

29. Makes you wonder if the Oligarch Musk was talking to threatened ground level Nuclear explosions

Or perhaps the threat was multiple explosions 80-160 Kilometers up which would have wiped out a big part of the starlink fleet and would have had minimal impack on ground targets.

[ancianita]

30. I'm trying to understand what you just said, and

the sky explosions make the most sense, the more I think about it.

If you're referring to Elon's talking to the warring Russian oligarch, he might have forced Elon to "take the deal" so that damage to Starlink would be avoided. ("Nice satellites you got there, too bad if something happened to it" ) I wouldn't be surprised. But if that did happen, he likely wouldn't admit that to anyone but our government; so maybe that's why he's not been in trouble? and hasn't done anything similar since?

[drmeow]

31. Does Elon Musk have a private jet

If so - I'd like to encourage him to fly through Ukrainian airspace as often as possible.

[ancianita]

33. He does! The biggest one in the world, and he's been everywhere on it BUT Ukraine.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/elon-musk-private-jet-130-flights-2022/

His personal jet, a Gulfstream G650ER with the call sign and tail number N628TS, completed a total of 134 flights in 2022, according to information compiled by Jack Sweeney, who runs a Twitter account tracking its movements.

The jet cost an estimated $US2.6 million to operate, including $US1.1 million for fuel and other running costs, and was responsible for creating nearly 1900 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to Business Insider.

The aircraft made trips from the US to Brazil, France, Italy, Greece, Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom according to Business Insider.

It was also likely to have taken Mr Musk to the soccer World Cup final in Qatar in December 2022.

Its longest flight, recorded on July 18 2022, was from Mykonos in Greece to Austin, Texas. Mr Musk is likely to have been on board as he was pictured in Greece two days earlier.

According to the statistics, the most frequent destinations for the Gulfstream jet included Los Angeles, and Austin and Brownsville in Texas, all in the US.

[progressoid]

34. Not quite the biggest

Bill Gates has a couple of Bombardier BD-700 Global Express jets which are bigger


John Travolta has a few planes including a 707 that he keeps in his backyard.





But the biggest goes to: Joseph Lau's private 747-8 VIP

The biggest private jet in the world belongs to Hong Kong real estate tycoon Joseph Lau, who boasts an estimated net worth exceeding $13 billion. The longest and second-largest commercial aircraft ever built has a 445 square meter interior and, on Lau's version, its two levels are connected by a spiral staircase. The initial outlay reportedly set Lau back $367 million, with modifications adding another $153 million to the bill.

[ancianita]

35. Close, though, and you get my point nevertheless.

Musk, Gates, Travolta, Lau are oligarchs with more in common in their monopolies than in the differences of their toys.

As we keep our "know your oligarch" files, let's not niggle, but keep their commonalities in mind.

[progressoid]

37. Yep. It's all disgusting.

[hunter]

32. Elon Musk hasn't done a damned thing to make the world a better place. He can fuck off and die.

Tesla is crap, SpaceX is crap, Starlink is crap, and X is a crap glitter frosting on top of it all.

[ancianita]

36. Tell that to the Ukrainian military, dude.

[hunter]

39. Or so it is claimed on X.

Do you really think a nation at war is going to tell some random dude on the internet details of their actual communications infrastructure?

[EX500rider]

41. here:

Whatever the fuss over Elon Musk, Starlink is utterly essential in Ukraine
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/08/elon-musk-starlink-ukraine-war/

[EX500rider]

40. "SpaceX is crap" Wow, if they are crap, what does that make the competition?

SpaceX is 10X cheaper with 30X lower cost overrun than NASA in lifting payloads into space.

SpaceX launches accounted for 60 percent of global launches last year, and the erstwhile-startup can launch its Falcon 9 for a (relatively) modest $80-90 million. ULA tacks on a much higher bill -- the Government Accountability Organization reported (in 2015) their average cost is more than $400 million/flight, based on actual Air Force contracts.

Rockets from the Falcon 9 family have been launched 261 times over 13 years, resulting in 259 full mission successes (99.2%)

[manicdem]

38. Weaponization of civilian systems

Isn't one of our principles to not make weapons out of civilian systems and equipment?

I want to support Ukraine but turning starlink into a weapon isn't the way. The purpose of starlink was to make it a neutral system and provide internet access to people worldwide, especially the poor.

If starlink is used for war, then governments will start banning it in places where it's most needed. Or worse, used against us and our allies.

[ancianita]

42. Starlink was an Internet communications system so Ukrainians could coordinate defense of

their country.

4,500 Starlink satellites still work for others all over Earth. I think you're mistaken about Starlink's purpose and current use.

Historically, US military contractors have started messes abroad that have forced our military to mop up.
They betrayed our faith in their loyalty, too. Elon is another owner the military have had faith in, and they contracted to pay him after he funded its use over Ukraine for the entire first year of their defensive war.
He's getting paid now, and he's keeping up his end of the contract.

We can hate oligarchs, and he's just one. There isn't another in recent history who has saved a whole people as he has. It's likely that Matthew Olsen of the DOJ, and counterintel agents of the FBI have had a sitdown with him after his bad judgment over Crimea. He's not done anything like it since.

Since he outran the military in comm satellite development -- due to their poor contracting with tech monopolists who hadn't the wisdom to reuse excellent rocketry and/or interoperable engineering parts -- so we and the US military are making the best of things. Hopefully, lessons learned all around.