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another problem solved by the problem solver…….

Undeterred by the social media storm that followed his peace proposal for Ukraine, billionaire Elon Musk has offered a suggestion on how to avoid conflict over Taiwan. His solution is “reasonably palatable” but would not make everyone happy, Musk revealed in a Financial Times interview published on Friday.

Musk “reckons that conflict over Taiwan is inevitable,” FT editor Roula Khalaf wrote after the magnate took her to lunch in Texas. The question about China occasioned “the longest silence”of the interview, she noted. 

While such a conflict will impact Tesla – the Shanghai factory accounts for 30-50% of its total electric car production – other companies like Apple will be “in very deep trouble,” according to Musk. The global economy will take at least a 30% hit, he estimates.

“My recommendation . . . would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy. And it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong,” Musk told Khalaf.

Beijing considers Taiwan sovereign Chinese territory, to be peacefully reintegrated at some point in the future. The island has been ruled by nationalists who left the mainland in 1949, after their defeat in the Chinese civil war. The US has been ramping up support for Taipei in recent months, accusing Beijing of planning an “invasion” – something China has denied.

Musk’s ideas about resolving the Taiwan impasse come just days after he made waves with a peace proposal for Ukraine, earnestly describing it as a way to avoid a looming prospect of nuclear war. 

His four-point plan had the Ukrainian authorities and their Western backers seeing red, however. Musk’s poll was swarmed by the “biggest bot attack [he’d] ever seen,” one Ukrainian diplomat cursed him out, and even President Vladimir Zelensky got involved.

Musk also sparred with US Senator Lindsey Graham and former chess champion turned anti-Russian activist Garry Kasparov. Meanwhile, Moscow’s unofficial response was also tongue-in-cheek.

Asked by FT about that particular Twitter storm, Musk laughed.

“Aren’t you entertained?” he asked Khalaf. “I play the fool on Twitter and often shoot myself in the foot and cause myself all sorts of trouble... I don’t know, I find it vaguely therapeutic to express myself on Twitter. It’s a way to get messages out to the public.”

 

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/564247-elon-musk-taiwan-solution/

 

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Elon Musk’s aerospace firm has asked the US military to take over funding for its Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, saying it is no longer able to foot the cost of operations, according to company documents obtained by CNN.

In a letter sent to the Pentagon last month, SpaceX outlined its financial difficulties and asked the government to begin funding Starlink services for Ukraine, claiming it will cost more than $120 million for the rest of 2022, and some $400 million over the next 12 months.

“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 said in the letter.

SpaceX has donated around 20,000 Starlink satellite units to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict in late February, providing internet connection and military coordination in chaotic battlegrounds that would otherwise be cut off from the web. Ukrainian officials have hailed the system as “an essential part of critical infrastructure.” 

Kiev has nonetheless urged the company to send thousands of additional Starlink terminals, with another letter obtained by CNN showing that a top Ukrainian general, Valery Zaluzhny, directly asked for 8,000 units back in July. An outside consultant for SpaceX later wrote that the firm “faces terribly difficult decisions here,” adding “I do not think they have the financial ability to provide any additional terminals or service as requested by General Zaluzhny.”

While Musk has stated that SpaceX will have spent more than $100 million providing Starlink services to Ukraine by the end of the year, the company’s letter to the Pentagon indicates that other parties have helped to bear some costs. The “vast majority” of the 20,000 units furnished to Ukraine have received “full or partial funding” from the American, British and Polish governments, as well as NGOs and private fundraisers, though SpaceX has covered most of the service costs of around $4,500 per terminal each month. 

More recently, SpaceX has come under fire for alleged Starlink outages across some regions of Ukraine, with the Financial Times relaying reports from Ukrainian soldiers of a “catastrophic” loss of communications last week. The cause of the outages remains unclear, though Ukrainian officials insist the problems were not the result of a technical glitch or cyberattacks, instead suggesting “SpaceX-imposed geographical restrictions.” Service has since resumed in the affected areas, however.

 

 

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/564636-starlink-pentagon-ukraine-funding/

 

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