Elon Musk wants Pentagon to now pay for Starlink critical satellite services in Ukraine

SpaceX warned the United States that it may stop funding the Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine — which has been an "essential part of critical infrastructure" and vital source of communication for Ukraine’s military amid the war with Russia.

According to documents accessed by CNN, Elon Musk’s SpaceX had last month sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service.

The letter also requested the Pentagon to take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military use of Starlink. It demanded the US military's contribution in tens of millions of dollars per month.

Reacting to the reports, Elon Musk tweeted, "SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable."

SpaceX claimed that the services would cost over $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months, the report said.

"We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales reportedly wrote to the Pentagon in September.

Nearly 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine. Musk tweeted on Friday that the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”

The documents in question all brought to light a request for almost 8,000 more Starlink terminals. The request was allegedly made by Ukrainian military’s commanding general General Valerii Zaluzhniy to Musk in July.

"SpaceX faces terribly difficult decisions here. I do not think they have the financial ability to provide any additional terminals or service as requested by General Zaluzhniy," a consultant working for SpaceX wrote in response.

Recently, Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in a tweet that SpaceX's Starlink services helped restore energy and communications infrastructure in Ukraine's critical areas.

"Over 100 cruise missiles attacked (Ukraine's) energy and communications infrastructure. But with Starlink we quickly restored the connection in critical areas," Fedorov tweeted.