The tripod-mounted dishes, each about the size of a computer display and clad in white plastic reminiscent of the sleek design sensibility of Musk’s Tesla electric cars, connect with a network of satellites.
Ukrainian officials and a loose coalition of expatriates in the tech sector, brainstorming in group chats on WhatsApp and Signal, found a potential solution: SpaceX, which manufactures a line of mobile Internet terminals called Starlink. Along with conventional assaults, the Kremlin was conducting cyberattacks against Ukraine’s digital infrastructure. Musk had become involved in the war in Ukraine soon after Russia invaded, in February, 2022. And that would have real operational impact for the Ukrainians.” Musk “could turn it off at any given moment. “We started to get a little panicked,” the senior defense official, one of four who described the standoff to me, recalled.
More alarmingly, SpaceX had recently given the Pentagon an ultimatum: if it didn’t assume the cost of providing service in Ukraine, which the company calculated at some four hundred million dollars annually, it would cut off access. But, in recent days, the forces had found their connectivity severed as they entered territory contested by Russia. SpaceX, Musk’s space-exploration company, had for months been providing Internet access across Ukraine, allowing the country’s forces to plan attacks and to defend themselves. “Even though Musk is not technically a diplomat or statesman, I felt it was important to treat him as such, given the influence he had on this issue,” Kahl told me. A senior defense official told me that Kahl was surprised by whom he was about to contact: “He was, like, ‘Why am I calling Elon Musk?’ ” Kahl had returned to his room, with its heavy drapery and distant view of the Eiffel Tower, after a day of meetings with officials from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. A staffer handed him an iPhone-in part to avoid inviting an onslaught of late-night texts and colorful emojis on Kahl’s own phone. Last October, Colin Kahl, then the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, sat in a hotel in Paris and prepared to make a call to avert disaster in Ukraine.
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