The Senate Armed Services Committee is examining national security questions raised by Elon Musk’s decision not to expand the private Starlink satellite network to support a Ukrainian attack on Russian warships near the Crimean coast.
Chairman Jack Reed said in a statement Thursday that the reports on Starlink use “revealed serious questions of national security liability and the committee is addressing this matter.”
“The committee is aggressively investigating this issue from all angles,” he said.
Musk’s SpaceX has also emerged as a major U.S. contractor, launching spy satellites for the Defense Department and operating the Starlink network. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reed said the committee will look at the broader satellite market, government contracting and “the outsized role that Mr. Musk and his company have played here.”
Reed and other senators have questioned why the decision wasn’t made by a government official.
“Neither Elon Musk nor any private citizen can have the final say when it comes to U.S. national security,” Reed said.
Other Democratic senators on the committee, including Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have asked the Defense Department for answers about why Musk – and not a US government official – decided when Ukraine could use the satellite network.
Shaheen and Warren plan to send a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking him for details about Starlink and Musk’s work in Ukraine, said a congressional staffer who did not want to be identified discussing internal deliberations. The panel is not yet launching a formal investigation but is rather gathering information, the aide said.
Shaheen said in a brief interview that she had asked administration officials at classified briefings about control over Starlink’s use in Ukraine and received no answers.
When Ukraine applied last year, Musk did not receive US funding for Starlink operations in Ukraine, although they are currently supported with Pentagon funding.
— With assistance from Loren Grush
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Source : fortune.com