September 14, 2023
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for an investigation into Elon Musk’s role in preventing a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian military ships in the Black Sea.
The incident was first reported in excerpts from an upcoming biography of Musk by Walter Isaacson. Musk confirmed that he denied the request to activate SpaceX’s Starlink satellite communications network over part of the Crimean coast, but said he did so because he did not want SpaceX to be “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
Ukrainian and other foreign officials have criticized Musk’s decision, saying that it protected Russian military assets and assisted Moscow in its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The Russian ships at the Sevastopol base have served as launch platforms for cruise missiles, which Moscow has used against civilian targets.
In a statement, Warren said that “Congress needs to investigate how it is that one billionaire is off making public policy, and foreign policy for the entire world.”
She also called on the Department of Defense to investigate its contracts with SpaceX, saying that “we need to investigate how this happened, what’s in those contracts that permits him to have this kind of power.”
The sources for this piece include an article in Axios.
