Secretary of State Marco Rubio and tech billionaire Elon Musk had a controversial exchange with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and in a series of X posts on Sunday, involving Ukraine’s Musk’s satellite system.
Sikorski responded to Musk’s post mentioning shutting down the system that any threat to shut down Starlink would lead to searching for other vendors.
Rubio quickly refuted Musk’s claim that the system would be shut down and urged Sikorsky to be grateful.
The three walked back and forth in the exchange of posts on X, calling Sikorski a “little man.”
Starlink’s system is part of SpaceX, which provides high-speed internet across the world to remote and underserved areas such as war zones.
The exchange began on Sunday when Musk posted Starlink as “the backbone of the Ukrainian army.”
“If I turn it off, their entire frontline will collapse,” he wrote.
Sikorsky then responded to Musk’s position, saying Poland was paying for the service.
“Starlinks in Ukraine are paid by the Polish Ministry of Digitalization for about $50 million a year,” Sikorski wrote. “The ethics of threatening the aggression victims, and if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider, we will be forced to look for other providers.”
Sikorski threatens to find other vendors if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable partner [Getty Images]
Sikorski’s position led to Rubio’s tweet and wrote that the Polish Foreign Minister was “just making up for it.”
“No one threatened to cut Ukraine from the Stars and Stripes,” Rubio wrote.
He added: “Thank you, because without the starlight link, Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and the Russians will now border Poland.”
Musk later responded to Sikorsky’s post, calling him a “little man.”
“Be quiet, little man. A small portion of what you pay. And it’s not a substitute for the Star Forest Line.”
The Starlink terminal is key to Ukrainian military operations and has been in use since the invasion of Russia in February 2022.
The country has thousands of terminals, including Terminal 500 purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense in June 2023.
