Elon Musk and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a heated exchange with the Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski over the use of the Starlink satellite system in Ukraine.
According to AA, the richest man in the world on Sunday, March 9, 2025, criticised the Polish minister after he claimed that Poland would look for an alternative for the Starlink internet services for Ukraine if Musk's company proves to be “unreliable.”
Sikorski wrote on X, “Starlink for Ukraine is paid for by the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs at a cost of about $50 million per year. Leaving aside the ethics of threatening the victim of aggression, if SpaceX turns out to be an unreliable supplier, we will be forced to look for other suppliers.”
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Reacting to his post, the Tesla owner asked the Polish foreign minister to stay “quiet” and called him a “small man.”
The SpaceX boss in a post on X said, “Be quiet, little man. You're paying a tiny fraction of the cost (for Starlink). And there are no substitutes... Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.”
As the heated argument between Musk and Sikorski continued, the US state secretary immediately came forward to resolve the issue and dismiss the billionaire’s claim of shutting down the system and urged the Polish foreign minister to be grateful.
Rubio wrote, “No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink. And say thank you because without Starlink, Ukraine would have lost this war long ago, and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.”
Notably, the Ukrainian military relies heavily on Musk’s Starlink terminals for their operations. They have been using these terminals since the beginning of Russia's invasion in February 2022.
There are tens of thousands of Starlink terminals in Ukraine, among which up to 500 were purchased by the US Department of Defence in June 2023.
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