Elon Musk admits thwarting a major Ukrainian attack on Russia by refusing to activate his Starlink satellites

• Elon Musk refused to activate Starlink satellites and thwarted a Ukrainian attack on the Russian navy, he said.
• "If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation," he said.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk admitted to thwarting a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia by refusing to activate his Starlink satellites to avoid escalating the conflict.

Walter Isaacson's new biography of Musk, reported by CNN and other US outlets Thursday, claimed Musk ordered the satellites to be switched off as Ukrainian drones were bearing down on Russian warships in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea.

Musk's account of events was slightly different, claiming that the satellites were never activated. However, he said he refused a request to switch them on.

"There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor," tweeted Musk Thursday.

"If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation."

As Insider's Charles R. Davis previously reported, Isaacson's book describes how Musk became reluctantly embroiled in the Ukraine war after providing Ukraine with Starlink satellites for free to maintain connectivity to the internet in the early days of the Russian invasion.

The satellites soon became a crucial tool for the Ukrainian military in coordinating drone strikes, battlefield communications, and other military operations.

Musk told Isaacson that he had never intended for the satellites to be used in warfare.

"How am I in this war?" Musk asked in an interview with Isaacson. "Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes."

According to the extracts, when Musk learned in the early weeks of the war that Starlink satellites were being used for the Sevastopol strike, he spoke by phone to the Russian ambassador in the US who told him the attack would result in a nuclear response from Russia.

With the drones around 60 miles from the Crimean coast, he ordered Starlink's engineers to turn off the satellites meaning the mission was effectively sabotaged and the drones washed ashore "harmlessly."

Ukrainian officials frantically tried to persuade Musk to turn the satellites back on, the book says, arguing it was essential in their battle against the Russian invasion. But Musk refused, according to the extracts, arguing that Ukraine was "going too far and inviting strategic defeat."

Mikailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, criticized Musk over the revelations in the book.

"By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities," Podolyak said. "As a result, civilians, children are being killed. This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego," he added.

Musk has faced criticism for echoing Russian talking points on the Ukraine war, suggesting that Ukraine should hand over territory in east Ukraine to Russia.

After he dismantled policies on X designed to combat disinformation, the site became swamped with pro-Russian propaganda, a European Union study released this week said.