ELON MUSK - RUSSIAN STOOGE

This is freakin’ incredible:

Elon Musk got caught with his hand in the national security cookie jar, sabotaging or blocking a major Ukrainian military operation after conversations with a Russian government official.

Let me repeat that:

Elon Musk got caught with his hand in the national security cookie jar, sabotaging or blocking a major Ukrainian military operation after conversations with a Russian government official.

Musk has amassed a degree of economic power that is novel and dangerous in itself even if he had the most benign of intentions and the most stable personality. More important - over half the operating satellites in the sky are owned and controlled by him.

Yesterday, confirmation came of something that has long been suspected or hinted at but which none of the players had an interest in confirming.

Last September Musk either cut off or refused to activate his Starlink satellite service near the Crimean coast during a surprise Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian Navy at anchor at its Sevastopol naval port.

This particular attack was a massed drone strike against the Russian Black Sea Fleet in its Sevastopol anchorage. It would have done extensive damage to the Russian Navy and killed their ability to launch missiles into southern Ukraine, and would have also ended their ability to intercept and sink ships carrying Ukrainian grain from Odesa.

That he could do this and get away with it is a good illustration of how Musk’s economic power has crept into domains that are more like the power of a state.

In case you don’t know what Starlink is, it’s a network of satellites that provide robust internet connectivity without having to rely on any ground infrastructure. This is critical for Ukraine, since the internet ground infrastructure has all been degraded or destroyed. Starlink is owned by and made possible by SpaceX, Musk’s space launch company, which is now the only means the U.S. has to launch satellites into space, or transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

As with everything else he claims to have “invented” or “created,” Space-X was built with the financial support of U.S. government contracts. The U.S. government fronted the money to build SpaceX by awarding it contracts that made its business viable. Musk and SpaceX are also U.S. military contractors. Which means he operates with a some major responsibilities and restrictions.

Raytheon isn’t at liberty to sell its high tech weaponry to Russia or China if the price is right. Neither is any other contractor in aerospace or national security. These contractors are legally and financially bound into the U.S. national security apparatus.

So is Musk and SpaceX. Or at least they’re supposed to be.

The story is that Musk took this action after several conversations with an unnamed Russian government official which, Musk claimed, led him to worry the Ukrainian attack could escalate into a nuclear conflict.

He made no attempt to independently verify what he was told by this unnamed Russian; he made no attempt to inform the U.S. government which was paying Space X to provide this service to Ukrain before he hit the “off” switch.

By last September, it was becoming clear to everyone but Musk and the Republican traitors in Congress he has allied himself with that fears of nuclear escalation by Russia should be taken with a huge tablespoon of salt.

Musk knows nothing about international relations; he has no knowledge of military technology or national capabilities. But in his mind, he is an all-knowing genius. Such a decision is simply not Musk’s to make. Musk is the last person who should be allowed to make such a decision. He’s a mercurial weirdo whose views change by the day and sometimes by the hour in reaction to whoever is giving him the most comments love on Xitter (that’s pronounced “Shitter”). His thinking about international affairs and national security is at best juvenile and fatuous. The idea that Musk had the authority to make such a call is as absurd as it is terrifying.

This whole situation in which private sector power and national security is mixed together in very scrambled ways is intolerable. Particularly where it involved Elon Musk, a demonstrated mercurial moron with more money than brains, who pushes every envelope and has been more than happy to use his domestic celebrity and control of communication to inflict serious havoc with any part of the U.S. government that calls him to account. And it was just after these events that Musk suddenly introduced his personal “peace plan” on Xitter, a plan that unsurprisingly matches all of Russia’s demands.

It is intolerable that we have a situation in which critical national security infrastructure in the hands of a Twitter troll who’s a soft touch for whichever foreign autocrat blows some smoke up his ass.

Leaving Ukraine at the mercy of this malignant moron is intolerable.

The Senate Armed Services Committee should bring him in front of the committee, in handcuffs if necessary, and expose his bullshit to the world. Having significant pieces of US national security at the mercy of a piece of shit who is perfectly happy to trade with the enemy cannot be allowed to continue.

ALL of the anti-social Silly Con Valley tech bros need to be brought to heel before they destroy things completely with their moron ignorance and self-reverential greed.

Elon Musk delenda est!

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