On October 14, 2022, CNN reported that SpaceX’s charitable contributions to the Ukrainian military might finish. The Starlink division of SpaceX has warned that it’ll cease offering broadband service in Ukraine except the United States army and Pentagon take over the funding. Recently, Musk’s peace plan for Ukraine and Russia acquired criticism, not solely from netizens however from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. 

SpaceX’s official writes to Pentagon in search of funding for Starlink providers in Ukraine

As per paperwork obtained by the publication, SpaceX’s director of presidency gross sales wrote a letter to the Pentagon final month. In the letter, the official writes, “we are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time.” 

Bad reporting by FT. This article falsely claims that Starlink terminals & service had been paid for, when solely a small share have been.

This operation has price SpaceX $80M & will exceed $100M by finish of 12 months.

As for what’s occurring on the battlefield, that’s categorized.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 7, 2022

Clearing out the timeline, Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, after which a number of nations worldwide despatched assist to the nation in japanese Europe. In March 2022, SpaceX’s Starlink introduced that it had despatched 1000’s of satellite tv for pc web kits to Ukraine to “ensure people are still communicating,” mentioned firm president Gwynne Shotwell.

How a lot did it price for SpaceX to ship satellite tv for pc terminals to Ukraine?

After Russia’s invasion, SpaceX despatched Starlink satellite tv for pc terminals as assist to the Ukrainian army. Since then, Ukraine’s army has relied closely on the bandwidth supplied by Starlink for its floor operations. Initially, the United States supplied $3 million to Starlink for the trigger; the Musk-led firm has been bearing all of the bills. 

On October 7, 2022, Musk tweeted in reply to a FT journalist that the Ukrainian Starlink operation has “cost SpaceX $80M & will exceed $100M by end of year,” and will price as a lot as $400 million for the subsequent 12 months. Musk additionally highlighted that solely a “small percentage” of the terminals and providers supplied to the affected nation was paid for by different organisations. 

By June 2022, SpaceX had despatched over 15,000 Starlink kits to Ukraine, which had been extraordinarily helpful for the nation’s officers. At the second, the Ukrainian sky has about 20,000 Starlink satellites. However, opposite to Musk’s tweet, the CNN report says that “the vast majority of the 20,000 terminals have received full or partial funding from outside sources, including the US government, the UK and Poland.”