Elon Musk reportedly claims that his company Space X can no longer sustain the operation of its Starlink satellite internet terminals that have been an essential means of communication for the Ukrainian troops in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Tech mogul Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that the operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will likely exceed $100 million by the end of the year in regards to the donation of about 20,000 Starlink satellite systems to Ukraine.
But SpaceX just told the Pentagon that it might stop sustaining the internet operation in Ukraine if the US military doesn't pay "tens of millions of dollars" every month.
In a letter to the Pentagon last month, Elon Musk's SpaceX explained why it could no longer provide the current level of funding for the Starlink service, according to documents acquired by CNN.
The letter also asked for the Pentagon to pay for the Ukrainian government and military to use Starlink Satellite Ukraine. According to SpaceX, this would cost more than $120 million for the rest of this year and up to $400 million for the next 12 months.
Pentagon Needs To Pay Huge Amounts
In September, the director of government sales at SpaceX wrote to the Pentagon, saying that the company is not in a position to provide more terminals to Ukraine "or pay for the ones they already have for an indefinite amount of time."
CNN obtained some of the documents sent by SpaceX to the Pentagon, and among them was a request from the Ukrainian military's commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhniy, for over 8,000 additional Starlink terminals, sent directly to Musk in July.
These previously unreported documents reveal a unique breakdown of SpaceX's internal data on Starlink, including the expenses and payments related to the hundreds of terminals in Ukraine.
They also offer new light on covert discussions that gave Ukraine communications equipment and services worth millions of dollars at little expense to Kyiv for the Russia-Ukraine war.
Elon Musk earned praises for providing Starlink Satellite Ukraine, however, the SpaceX letter discloses that the bulk was paid for by the US government, the UK, and Poland, per Politico.
Poland gave the largest funding for the roughly 9,000 terminals supplied to Ukraine, per the documents. Each terminal costs $1,500-$2,500.
According to SpaceX, while it paid for the remaining, more expensive, 70% of the cost of internet connectivity, the government only funded one-third of that expense.
Starlink Outage Problem
The letters are timely, since the Ukrainian military has been trying to recapture territory in the east and south of the nation from Russian forces, and there have been reports of widespread Starlink disruptions.
People who knew about the outages say they happened out of the blue on September 30 and affected the whole frontline. A person familiar with the disruptions told CNN on condition of anonymity that it hindered Ukrainian efforts to advance as Starlink serves as the primary means of communication between military units.
The Financial Times recently reported that a senior Ukrainian official claimed that Starlink has been experiencing "catastrophic" outages on the front lines, leading some to speculate that it has been cut off in areas controlled by Russia, possibly to prevent the Kremlin from manipulating the system.
On Twitter, Musk stated he could not remark on the situation on the battlefield, saying, "That's classified."
Bremmer, founder and head of political-risk analysis company Eurasia Group said on Monday that Musk appeared to confirm that the satellite service was being purposely discontinued in a conversation they had in late September, according to Business Insider.
Despite repeated attempts to reach them, neither SpaceX nor the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has yet provided a statement.
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