Florida Governor DeSantis lauds Musk for providing internet services to Ukraine

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has spoken on the matter of Elon Musk's statements regarding the heavy costs being sustained by SpaceX to operate Starlink satellite internet in Ukraine. Last week, Musk had said that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraine’s communications needs.

Earlier, Ukraine had slammed Musk for offering a solution to the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Citing the matter, DeSantis said,“When Russia invaded Ukraine, Elon Musk positioned his satellites over Ukraine and gave them these things. So they’ve actually been using his devices to be able to defend their country, and I guess some of the people in the government were attacking Musk."

“And I’m just thinking to myself, ‘He’s doing this for free,’ ” DeSantis said. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Good Lord!”

“He’s provided that for them for free,” DeSantis added. “And if you think about it, in a country that big, given what’s going on, that’s tens of millions of dollars that he’s effectively donated.”

After asking the US government to pick up the tab on the internet operations, Musk later tweeted that he will continue to pay for the services.

“The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free,“ Musk tweeted Saturday.

Pentagon is now reportedly considering funding Elon Musk's Starlink network in war-torn Ukraine, reported Politico. Neither Pentagon nor US Department of Defense Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative have commented on the matter yet.

DeSantis was replying to a query about poor internet connection in Florida following Hurrican Ian, and said “Elon Musk devices” and “Musk stuff” in each county may help in the short term.

(With inputs from agencies)