On Saturday, Elon Musk tweeted that his SpaceX company in Ukraine would keep funding its services in the country, even if it is losing.
But Musk’s tone and wording also raised the possibility that the irascible Tesla CEO was just being sarcastic.
It is not clear if SpaceX has actually established plans for service in Ukraine and Musk has been sending subtle tweets to show support for Russia, not outrightly though.
On Friday, senior U.S. officials confirmed that Musk had officially asked the Defense Department to take over funding for the service Starlink provides in Ukraine.
Starlink, which provides broadband internet service using more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites, has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces since early in the nation’s defense against Russia’s February invasion.
On Saturday, Musk tweeted:
“The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”
Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraine’s communications needs. Tesla didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Although it was not immediately clear whether Elon’s change of mind was genuine, he later appeared to indicate it was. When a Twitter user told Musk “No good deed goes unpunished,” he replied, “Even so, we should still do good deeds.”
The Starlink programme costs $20m (£18m) per month to maintain, according to Mr Musk. He recently said SpaceX had spent $80m so far to keep Ukraine online.
Energy installations were among facilities targeted by more than 100 Russian missiles this week. Starlink consists of thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit and ground terminals.
SpaceX has donated about 25,000 ground terminals to Ukraine, according to an updated figure given by Elon last week
