Musk, the chaos maker on the global political scene

Over the past four weeks, Elon Musk has angered Ukrainian officials by proposing a peace plan for Russia and Ukraine. He posted a tweet about Internet access in Iran that exposed government protesters to a phishing scheme. He also suggested in a newspaper interview that China might be appeased if it was given some control over Taiwan. An official in Taipei asked him to retract the proposal.

In recent months, Musk has emerged as a new source of confusion on the global political scene. While many billionaire executives enjoy tweeting their views on world affairs, no one comes close to Musk when it comes to influence and troublemaking ability. Sometimes he even continues to intervene even when others persuade him not to get involved, and has left a lot of mess.

While much of Musk's wealth comes from his stake in electric car company Tesla, his clout comes largely from his rocket company SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite network that can deliver satellites to conflict zones and geopolitical hotspots. Regional delivery of Internet services has become an important tool for the Ukrainian military.

Musk's influence will expand further if his plan to buy Twitter is finalized on Friday, as he promised. Calling himself an absolutist for free speech, he is expected to take a less intrusive approach to policing Twitter content.

His critics abound, who worry that it will be difficult to separate Musk's views from his business interests, especially when it comes to Tesla, which is increasingly dependent on China.

"Technology has become central to geopolitics," said Karen Kornbreu, director of the German Marshall Fund, a geopolitical think tank and a former adviser to President Obama. "It's fascinating, but it's also messy, and Elon Musk is part of it."

In some cases, Musk counts as a benefactor. Earlier this year, he provided Ukraine with Starlink internet access and funded at least some of the hardware and services that provide vital means of communication for civilians and soldiers in the ongoing conflict with Russia.

But his message also raised questions. Last week, he abruptly reversed his position after posting on Twitter that he could not fund Ukraine's use of Starlink "indefinitely . "

Musk attended a private event called "The Weekend" in Aspen late last month. Organized in part by former Google CEO and government adviser Eric Schmidt, the event brought together U.S. business and political leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Al Gore and former Chief of Staff Joint Conference Chair Joseph Dunford.

At lunchtime, under a tent on a golf course, Musk took the stage for a wide-ranging conversation with billionaire businessman David Rubenstein, according to two attendees who spoke on condition of anonymity.

At the end of the talk, and to the surprise of many attendees, Musk proposed a Ukrainian war peace plan that would allow Russia to annex Ukrainian land, sounding like he was siding with the Kremlin.

According to attendees, the idea irritated many people. The next day, President Biden's national security adviser Sullivan gave a video address at the event, and a questioner asked about Musk's peace plan. Sullivan had no comment on Musk's remarks at the event, according to a spokesman for the National Security Council. Still, Musk unveiled his plans 10 days later on Twitter. The Kremlin publicly supports the idea.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top aides strongly condemned Musk's plan. But his changing stance put them in a bind: Starlink terminals had become a vital means of communication for the Ukrainian military.

Musk did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

In mid-September, Ukrainian forces lost connectivity to Starlink in some areas near the front line as they advanced into southern territory previously occupied by Russia, according to four people familiar with the matter. Two of them said that was because Musk had "geo-segregated" the service, making it only available in certain regions. It's unclear why the satellite system wasn't working, but others in Ukraine reported it was working fine.

Musk has discussed the issue with the Ukrainian and U.S. governments to determine where the military could access Starlink, the people said. A spokesman for the National Security Council said the council, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, and "officials from across the U.S. government have spoken with Starlink and answered questions about U.S. policy, just as we do with all companies." like that".

This month, Musk has brought more uncertainty to Ukraine, saying that he can no longer pay for Starlink services in Ukraine, which made the outside world think that he is bearing the related costs. In fact, the U.S., U.K. and Poland paid SpaceX at least some of the royalties for the Starlink project, according to a document reviewed by The New York Times outlining the spending.

“He has to decide whether Starlink is a commercial service that sometimes provides customers with life-saving technology, or whether it’s a A service that is highly dependent on management’s geopolitical interests and therefore unreliable for customers concerned about national security.”

While Musk was in Aspen developing a peace plan for the Ukraine war, he was also involved in the unrest in Iran.

He appeared to come to the rescue as protests spread across the country, with authorities shutting down the internet in some areas. "Activating Starlink," he wrote on Twitter . The administration previously lifted some sanctions that restricted U.S. technology companies from doing business in Iran so they could help protesters.

Starlink offers the possibility of bypassing the government's onshore internet blockade that has kept many Iranians living in cities offline.

But many Iranians soon learned that Musk had not kept his word. Musk didn't reveal anything about what it would take to get Starlink up and running, how long it would take, and why Iranian government restrictions would make it nearly impossible to offer the service broadly inside Iran.

While Starlink remains unavailable in Iran, hackers believed to be linked to the government have started a phishing campaign, sending messages on social media channels with links claiming to be able to access them, according to Iranian digital rights expert Amir Rashidi. Provide Starlink. Instead of providing access to Musk's satellite system, the links were malware that harvested information from users' phones, Rashidi said, of at least five that he analyzed.

Rashidi said Iran now has a small amount of Starlink internet access, and the equipment is smuggled across the border. This has raised additional concerns that authorities will be able to identify the transmitted data, as satellite signals could be traceable to individuals on the ground.

Rashidi, who fled the country in 2009, praised Musk for trying to help but said his tactics were "very irresponsible."

"It's really just a whim of saying 'I'm doing a good thing,' without thinking about the consequences," he said.

Musk has also recently dabbled in perhaps the world's most delicate geopolitical hotspot: Taiwan.

Tensions between China and Taiwan pose a major risk to Musk's business empire. Tesla has a factory in Shanghai that accounts for 50% of the company's new car production. The Beijing government tightly controls how Western companies operate in China, and observers have long worried that Tesla's reliance on China could affect Musk's political stance.

This month, Musk confirmed he was under pressure from Beijing when he told the Financial Times that the Chinese government had made it clear that he disapproved of his Starlink internet service in Ukraine. He said Beijing sought assurances that he would not provide the service in China.

He then proposed a way to ease tensions: hand over some control of Taiwan to China.