Elon Musk warned on Sunday that he may “die under mysterious circumstances” after a Russian politician threatened him for supplying equipment to Ukraine that is being used to fight the Russian military.
Musk supplied Starlink terminals from one of his company’s, SpaceX, that are being used to communicate and to operate drones.
Musk posted a screenshot of a translated message that he says Dmitry Rogozin, Moscow’s space chief, sent to Russian media.
“From the testimony of the captured commander of the 36th Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel Dmitry Kormyankov, it turns out that the internet terminals of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite company were delivered to the militants of the Nazi Azov Battalion and the Ukrainian Marines in Mariupol by military helicopters,” the message states. “According to our information, the delivery of the Starlink equipment was carried out by the Pentagon.”
“Elon Musk, thus, is involved in supplying the fascist forces in Ukraine with military communication equipment,” the message continued. “And for this, Elon, you will be held accountable like an adult – no matter how much you’ll play the fool.”
The word “Nazi” doesn’t mean what he seems to think it does pic.twitter.com/pk9SQhBOsG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2022
“The word ‘Nazi’ doesn’t mean what he seems to think it does,” Musk said.
A short time later Musk added, “If I die under mysterious circumstances, it’s been nice knowin ya.”
If I die under mysterious circumstances, it’s been nice knowin ya
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2022
Musk’s Starlink satellite network reportedly fought off in rapid fashion an attempt by Russia to jam the system, something that Musk had acknowledged in late March.
Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said late last month that Starlink was able to fight off the attack faster than the U.S. Military would have been able to and that officials could learn something from Musk.
“Starlink had slung a line of code and fixed it,” Tremper said, noting that the quick change rendered the attack “not effective anymore.”
“How they did that was eye-watering to me,” he said. “There’s a really interesting case study to look at the agility that Starlink had in their ability to address that problem. “In the way that Starlink was able to upgrade when a threat showed up, we need to be able to have that agility.”