>>22514733
>I'm just anon like you.
KEK
USAID Spent $1 Million On Elon Musk’s Starlink Terminals In The Last Year
USAID and SpaceX worked together to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia, and provided internet to multiple African countries.
Over the last four years, the U.S. government’s humanitarian and development arm has spent as much as $1 million on SpaceX’s Starlink terminals, federal contract records show, bringing them to Zimbabwe and South Africa, the country where Musk was born.
Its most significant partnership, though, saw USAID working with SpaceX to send 5,000 Starlink terminals, worth some $3 million, to Ukraine for free shortly after the war broke out in 2022. In November last year, Musk tweeted on his X platform, “A major factor for why Ukraine was NOT overrun by Russia is the Starlink support I provided, at great risk to SpaceX cyber & physical attack by Russian military forces… Starlink is the BACKBONE of Ukrainian military communications at the front lines, because everything else has been blown up or jammed by Russia.”
“Starlink is the BACKBONE of Ukrainian military communications…”
Elon Musk
In the last 24 hours, Musk has said his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been given permission to shut down USAID. Over the weekend, it was reported that DOGE staff had tried to enter USAID offices to access materials, including classified information, while hundreds of staff have been either fired or furloughed. The agency website remains down. Trump, meanwhile, has frozen billions in international aid. Marco Rubio has confirmed he is the agency’s new interim boss, saying that many of its functions would be rolled into other parts of government. It’s not clear what these changes mean for ongoing USAID contracts.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, which has also been vocal about its use of Starlink, also did not respond to a comment request.
While SpaceX had been praised for providing free Starlink terminals to Ukraine, helping speed up communications on the battlefield with Russia, its work in the war torn country wasn’t without controversy. Reports had suggested Ukraine was furious after Musk cut off Starlink internet access for drones during a planned 2022 attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. U.S. lawmakers have also voiced concerns that Russia had illegally acquired Starlink terminals. Musk denied any had been sold to Moscow, which would have violated U.S. sanctions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2025/02/03/usaid-and-musk-were-partners-via-spacex-starlink/