Unless at gunpoint: Elon Musk says Starlink won’t block Russian news

Musk, who is also the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla, tweeted, “Starlink has been told by some governments (not Ukraine) to block Russian news sources. We will not do so unless at gunpoint. Sorry to be a free speech absolutist.”

Team Newsable

New York, First Published Mar 5, 2022, 12:54 PM IST | Last Updated Mar 5, 2022, 12:54 PM IST

In the wake of ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Tech Billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday said that Starlink, the SpaceX backed satellite internet service has been told by some governments to block Russian news sources. However, he has refused to comply with requests from “some governments”.

This comes a day after Musk warned that there was a high chance the company’s Starlink satellite broadband service could be “targeted” in Ukraine, which has been hit by Russian invasion.

Further, responding to a comment by a Twitter user about Russian “news” being “propaganda resources,” Musk said, “All news sources are partially propaganda, some more than others.”

Meanwhile, the Tesla Founder called for an immediate increase in oil and gas production around the world because sustainable solutions cannot replace Russian output. “Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil & gas output immediately,” Musk wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures.”

Musk added that although increasing oil and gas production would affect Tesla negatively, sustainable energy solutions cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil and gas exports.

Musk also said that Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) was reprioritized to cyber defense & overcoming signal jamming, will cause slight delays in Starship & Starlink V2.

These remarks by Musk comes amid social media platforms banning Russian News outlets including RT and Sputnik over their coverage of the Ukraine crisis.

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