SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the Starlink internet system in Ukraine will stay on. And we should all do good deeds.

 The day before Musk took to Twitter to explain that the company wouldn’t be able to supply the $20 million a month service to the war-torn country “indefinitely.” 

Musk wrote on Twitter: “The hell with it. Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayers $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.” 

Elon Musk may be the only private citizen to have done such “good deeds” for another country. It may well be the largest and least appreciated good deed ever.

Good deeds are expensive

On Saturday, the tech billionaire responded to a comment on Twitter saying that “no good deed goes unpunished”, and adding “Even so, we should still do good deeds”.

From February to date SpaceX, a private company has provided over 1 billion dollars in free service to the country of Ukraine.

Over the past 18 months, the private space agency has launched hundreds of satellites into low-orbit space to develop the Starlink grid. And that portion of the company is still operating in the “red.”

The entrepreneur complained this week that giving Ukraine Starlink service was expensive. And it was costing SpaceX, his private space company “approaching $20mn a month.”  

Musk said in a tweet that SpaceX was spending millions to “create, launch, maintain & replenish satellites & ground stations & pay telcos for access to the internet via gateways.” He added that the company also “had to defend against cyber-attacks & jamming, which are getting harder.”

The Pentagon confirmed they have been in discussions with the billionaire over how to assure that Ukraine has uninterrupted service of SpaceX’s satellite internet service, Starlink provided to Ukrainian frontline troops.

The US had been discussing compensating Starlink to ensure connectivity for Ukrainian forces. The US has provided billions of dollars of war weapons and ammunition paid to weapons manufacturers. But so far have been reluctant to compensate SpaceX.

In late September, SpaceX turned on Starlink service to Iran during the massive protests. This also appears to be more good deeds from the multibillionaire.

It started in February

When Russia invaded in February, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, pleaded with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk for help.

Within hours, Elon Musk posted that the Starlink satellite internet system was turned on. And that truckloads of cutting-edge terminals were on the way.

Musk made an ill-advised suggestion for peace terms. And said that Ukrainian leaders should negotiate a settlement to end the war. It included letting Russia keep Crimea. 

In response to his proposal a tweet quoting a Ukrainian diplomat, Andrij Melnyk told Musk to “f#ck off” and no Ukrainian would buy a Tesla. US-based entrepreneur Musk who also owns Tesla tweeted, a response “We’re just following his recommendation”. 

On Saturday SpaceX launched and successfully deployed the Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F.