Defund Elon Musk | Robert Reich

No private individual should have the power to determine US foreign policy, as Musk has attempted to do in Ukraine

He’s Exhibit A on why billionaire wealth should be taxed, why we must get big money out of politics, why billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to buy up major media, and why our government shouldn’t give them huge military contracts.

I’m talking about Elon Musk, of course.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk “ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine”. The decision “sparked panic in Kyiv and confusion inside the Trump administration, U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter said”.

Musk and Trump, the Journal noted, have both “expressed anger at Ukraine for attacking Russian diesel refineries in recent weeks, which the president blames for high energy prices” – although the high prices are really due to Trump’s war in Iran.

This month, Musk slowed “the speeds at which Ukrainian hardware could stay connected to the satellite-based network … rendering some offensive drones and interceptor drones virtually useless”.

According to the Journal, “Musk and Trump discussed the Starlink decision in a call soon after the slowdown became public.”

Who gave Musk authority to slow his satellite service in the first place? Musk finally admitted this weekend that he had pulled the plug because, he wrote on Twitter/X: “Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people.”

So Musk can decide on his own when a foreign country working alongside the United States against a brutal dictator can have access to vital US intelligence?