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Thanks! That's interesting, and is enough to make one doubt the original story.
Although, at the top of that article is the following:
Which is also odd.
... It's very weird, in a grand sense, that we're trying to draw all of these conclusions from a few paragraphs of text scattered across a few small news articles, right? It seems easy for misunderstandings, intentional or not, to emerge from that. And that's not just a problem for this, but the whole project of 'understanding politics and the world via news'.
That quote was specifically about not allowing them to directly control drones via Starlink, not "use of Starlink for military purposes" in general. They're fine with allowing them to be used for military communication but apparently not with drones carrying Starlink terminals so that they can be controlled by satellite without worrying about range and with less concern about jamming.
Reuters: SpaceX curbed Ukraine's use of Starlink internet for drones -company president
The Economist: Ukraine is betting on drones to strike deep into Russia
Aside from Starlink's apparent desire to not directly serve as the command and control system for drones and Musk's stated fears about escalation, I wonder if the U.S. government played some part in that decision, like how the U.S. has been reluctant to provide Ukraine with long-range missile systems capable of striking inside Russia.
Washington Post: U.S. in no hurry to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles
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You should have doubted the original story from the beginning. The fact is that it's easy for trained, intelligent journalists to create 'misunderstandings' without actually lying. Musk was never accused directly of sabotaging the Ukrainians - he was just 'appearing to'. His presumed sympathy to Russia becomes an assumed fact. The actual explanation is omitted.
Journalists are not idiots. They write exactly what they want to. Take the phrase 'Musk seemed to embrace COVID denialism'. Elon Musk is one of the most famous and public figures in the world who makes a habit of running his mouth on Twitter, but this trained journalist apparently can't figure out whether he believes that COVID exists.
I like Musk. What he’s doing for Ukraine is uniquely valuable, and the article is an obvious hit piece with a tenuous grasp on reality.
But reversed stupidity is still not intelligence. The OP could have defended Musk, even excoriated the New Yorker, without stretching the facts. It doesn’t take a partisan hack to reveal other hackery. Instead, OP reduced the story down to the parts he found most favorable. Is that really any better?
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