Elon Musk told the Financial Times that the Chinese government does not want to sell its Starlink satellite internet service to China, while also disapproving of providing the technology to Ukraine.
“Musk says Beijing has made clear its disapproval of the recent deployment of Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite communications system, in Ukraine to help the military bypass a Russian internet blackout,” the newspaper reported in its latest “Lunch with the FT” column published on Friday.
In contrast to the reactions of the US and other countries regarding Russia of Ukraine, China refused to characterize the attack as an invasion.
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In February, two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Musk enabled the use of Starlink satellite internet in Ukraine. It was the first of many missions to the country that helped Ukraine stay connected amid Russian attacks.
Ukrainian officials and military leaders praised the move, with a US general saying that Starlink “completely destroyed Putin’s information campaign” and efforts to silence Ukrainian President Zelensky.
However, the Financial Times recently reported that Ukrainian forces have experienced some outages of their Starlink devices on the front lines. Roman Sinicyn, who is involved in donating Starlink systems to the Ukrainian armed forces, said the outages were the result of SpaceX trying to prevent the Russians from using the technology.
Since then, Elon Musk has also activated Starlink in Iran amid widespread protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who died while in police custody.
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According to the Financial Times, Elon Musk said that China not only disapproved of the launch of Starlink satellites to Ukraine, but also demanded assurances that SpaceX would not sell Starlink to China.
The satellite internet service is available in about 40 countries, but SpaceX has yet to sell Starlink to China. Chinese state media reported that SpaceX has no plans to apply for an operating license in China.
It is worth noting that the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is heavily dependent on China, as it is the largest market for electric cars in the world. In 2018, Elon Musk opened a factory in Shanghai. Since then, the factory has become one of Tesla's main export hubs. Last year, half of Tesla came from China.
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The billionaire has publicly praised China in the past.
However, the country has in recent years placed greater emphasis on developing its own technology, including aerospace. Domestic telecom giants such as China Mobile and Huawei have helped China achieve one of the highest 5G in the world.
Additionally, China completed its own satellite communications system, Beidou , in 2020. The system competes with the US government-owned GPS
