Is Ukraine's Counteroffensive at the Mercy of Elon Musk's Whims?

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk brought internet to war-torn Ukraine earlier this year, helping aid the country's counteroffensive against invading Russian forces.

From the start of the war, the Ukrainian military relied on Musk's Starlink system to connect its drones attacking Russian forces to the internet.

By April, Musk's company had delivered some 5,000 terminals to Ukraine, helping undermine Russian propaganda efforts as the service attracted approximately 150,000 daily users within the country, per estimates from the Ukraine government.

But all of that, some fear, could soon be lost.

Earlier this week, reports emerged that Musk—who initially pledged to provide the lion's share of Starlink's Ukrainian infrastructure with assistance from the U.S. government—wrote to the Pentagon in September saying SpaceX, which operates Starlink, can no longer afford to cover the cost of the service and asking for the U.S. Department of Defense to assume the cost.

The news prompted outrage from Ukrainian officials as well as citizens claiming to be among the thousands already paying for internet access during the war. Some, upon the news, began wondering how the money was being spent, or whether Musk's claims were an accurate depiction of the company's finances.

"So @elonmusk is whining about losing a lot of money on Starlinks for Ukraine," Melaniya Podolyak, a Ukrainian influencer, tweeted after the Musk news with a screenshot of a list of payments she'd made for Starlink internet. "Meanwhile, may I present to you snippets of my bank statements. Thousands of Ukrainians, paying his company monthly. So the question is: did you really lose more money than you earned?"

Newsweek has contacted SpaceX for comment on the program's financial status, and on whether the communique between Musk and the Pentagon was at all related to any of the challenges facing Musk's other business ventures, including his efforts to buy the social media platform Twitter and declining year-over-year performance for his electric vehicle company, Tesla.

Meanwhile, the prospect of Starlink's disappearance from the battlefield could prove costly to Ukraine as it has found renewed success in driving back Russian forces from occupied regions in the eastern part of the country. Recent outages with Starlink devices were reportedly straining the Ukrainian military's efforts to mount a counteroffensive against the Russians in regions recently under Russian control, Ukrainian officials have said.

Other officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—who once credited Musk for helping the country in the early stages of the war—have grown critical toward him, particularly after Musk, who has reportedly been in contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced a proposal for peace between the two countries on Twitter that included Ukraine potentially ceding land Russia had seized at the invasion's start.

"Which Elon Musk do you like more?" Zelensky tweeted in response. "One who supports Ukraine," or "One who supports Russia."

It is unclear if Musk will decline to continue funding Starlink's operations there—or whether the U.S. Department of Defense will start.

"The Department continues to work with industry to explore solutions for Ukraine's armed forces as they repel Russia's brutal and unprovoked aggression," Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, the DoD press secretary, told reporters Friday. "We do not have anything else to add at this time."

Newsweek has contacted the Pentagon for comment.