r/technology • u/HydrolicKrane • 16h ago
Politics Poland Grills Musk About New Starlink Restrictions in Ukraine
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-14/poland-grills-musk-about-new-starlink-restrictions-in-ukraine102
u/CrappyTan69 15h ago
We, Europe, simply need our own solution.
We cannot: 1. Rely on private companies for defence communications 2. Systems or companies owned and operated by an organisation outside of our control and with no levers to pull.
Stop moaning about it and get it done. The USA has played their cards and we know we should not rely on them again (no matter who's in government )
29
6
u/NoSingularities0 7h ago
The Russians can jam European satellites just like they can jam U.S. StarLink satellites. But Europe should absolutely do Europe. As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention" so there's nothing wrong with Europe creating and launching their own Internet satellite constellation.
-17
-23
u/Ok_Relation7695 14h ago
Trump would not allow that.
15
u/CrappyTan69 14h ago
And... How would he stop it?
127
u/Grughs 16h ago
Im sure he will wipe his tears with 100$ bills and really couldn't care less what Poland says as long as there is no real consequences.
59
u/primax1uk 15h ago
Poland purchased the license for Ukraine, so they own the rights for its use, not Ukraine. So in a roundabout way, he's turned off Poland's access.
80
u/Stewie01 16h ago
Remove licence to operate, I'm sure others would follow to.
44
u/According-Insect-992 15h ago
This is long overdue.
The cat is out of the bag on starlink being a scam so there is little to lose by pursuing him for his crimes.
2
-29
u/Flyinmanm 16h ago
Much as I agree with the sentiment of that and agree it would be easy enough to get out of any government contracts, how would you enforce that on a personal level?
Aren't the terminals pretty decentralised? Hence why they are used in warzones in the first place.
29
u/marcus-87 15h ago
Well, maybe we could argue, that if the head of the company seems to work for Europe’s enemies, that all his companies should come under more scrutiny 🧐
6
u/jsonmeta 15h ago
Sales ban etc, people will need to go the extra mile to buy that may definitely have an impact on the sales numbers. Ukraine buying it because there is not a lot of choices out there, yet
5
35
u/SWHAF 16h ago
Blowing up the data centres in Russia must be lowering the traffic on X.
13
u/Dirt290 12h ago
It had a slight effect on traffic for a short while but those bots are run on multiple international servers and don't rely on just that specific data center.
1
u/QuestionableEthics42 6h ago
They hit multiple data centers at once I thought? Or was it just hitting one massive one in different places at once?
Edit: though the international datacenter redundancy point is still valid
4
u/TheOgGhadTurner 13h ago
Oh god. Ya know what you’re probably right. Or a Grok back up.
4
u/SWHAF 11h ago
A significant amount of agitators on social media are bots from countries like Russia, Iran , China and America trying to mess with other countries politics.
2
u/TheOgGhadTurner 11h ago
I know. it seemed like you were making a joke that he’s losing engagement and therefore revenue. I was making a joke that there was also a Grok Backup on that server which is why Bitch baby Musk restricted them for blowing up the data center.
1
u/betawings 7h ago
They are paid trolls humans mixed with bots. . Troll hired by marketing agencies with ties to Russia for added deniability.
1
u/ResponsibleOwl7461 20m ago
Instead of more direct approach like kidnapping and killing presidents?
19
12
u/ItsAllOnUHF 15h ago
They should grill him.
There are a lot of nations on Earth that could use Starlink, but there a fewer rich nations whose citizens can afford the prime monthly fees.
Kick Starlink out of the country if Elon can't be trusted to keep it operational.
31
u/Striking_Assist_7715 16h ago
So a publicly traded company has a CEO who si gle handedly decides what the company does. America you really are corrupt and evil to the core.
-1
11
5
u/CulturedReaving692 7h ago
I don't understand how stupid these people are, Starshield, what Ukraine is using, is SpaceX hardware, but it's 100% controlled by the USA government.
10
u/araujoms 12h ago
It shows how no country outside the US can rely on Starlink for national security.
-2
u/NoSingularities0 6h ago
Well yeah, that would be stupid in the first place. The U.S. would be stupid to rely on Europe for national security (they support Iran) and Europe would also be stupid to rely on Russia or China for national security satellites because obviously Russia or China does not have Europe's best interests at heart. Nor would the US rely on Russia or China for national security as that would be ridiculously stupid on our part. Essentilally, different regions of the world have different national security priorities, and individual countries should 100% consider that. Latvia has a border with Russia and Russians have already been making incursions across their border and NATO (European NATO countries) have done nothing. It would be great if European NATO countries adhered to thier commitments, but just like Russia, they do not, and Russian border countries like Latvia and Estonia will eventually be taken over by Russian forces.
1
u/araujoms 1h ago
Spoken like a good Russian bot. Apparently the drone strike didn't take out all of fhem.
2
3
2
2
u/TeslasAndComicbooks 5h ago
Isn’t that what Starshield is for? Starlink is supposed to be a consumer product.
3
u/N3M3S1S75 16h ago
He should be charged with war crimes and locked up in gen pop and have his assets stripped
4
u/manu144x 11h ago
From what I've read today, it wasn't Musks fault (as much as I dislike him).
Apparently the Starlink systems that Ukraine uses are the military versions, with different terminals and different access channels, they have dedicated bandwidth and all the usual stuff you'd expect.
But...this branched is exclusively used by the Pentagon, and it's the Pentagon that gives access to Ukraine and controls it.
So the kill order must have come down via political channels, which makes way more sense as Jared Kushner himself warned Ukraine about this friday.
3
u/Accomplished-Crab932 11h ago
Even if it was base Starlink, control of regular Starlink geofencing and restrictions was handed off to the DOD in 2023 as part of a contract created during the blowback from the Crimean activation denial.
2
u/Tapeworm1979 15h ago
What I don't get is that he wants to be loved. Man could literally be Tony Stark but instead chooses to be Obadiah.
1
0
1
u/robustofilth 9h ago
Elon is picking fights with people he shouldn’t. There’s a lot of military personnel in Ukraine who will want a chat with him ove his silliness.
1
u/ReasonablyConfused 14h ago
Curious when the first Nation State will take out a Western oligarch. Pretty sure it’s happened west to east, but so far no West vs Western oligarch, yet.
1
u/WinnieFuckingPooh 11h ago
Once the Americans have removed this administration from power, the law enforcement agencies will have a free hand and must carry out wide-ranging investigations into corruption and links with Russia involving Trump, his family and Musk. There is no other way to describe this than as a betrayal of the US’s allies and national interests.
1
u/serial_crusher 10h ago
asking a question--which never gets answered--on social media, hardly counts as "grilling"
0
0
u/Mason_Caorunn 12h ago
Thankfully ASTS offers an alternative sovereign network option so this can’t happen on their sats.
0
u/ShinobiOfTheWind 10h ago
No private or publicly traded corporation, should control satellites in orbit above nations, which could potentially compromise the sovereignty or national security.
Everything in the skies or above, should either be in control of the armed forces, and the local space agency under the government.
0
u/ICLazeru 6h ago
Musk has done this repeatedly. No nation is going to want to make such gravely important matters as it's defense reliant upon a service so unreliable. He's poisoning the only profitable division in SpaceX.
-16
41
u/Superb-Talk2211 16h ago
It's one thing for Ukraine to destroy Russia's oil and gas facilities. I don't think that moves the needle for him one way or another. But now they're going after data centers. In his addled brain, that's a way bigger threat.