Writing a biography about a global conspirator like Elon Musk, and even more so with his collaboration, is equivalent to betting on the winning horse.
The impact of the editorial advance (the book comes out next Tuesday and it is already a bomb) has been fueled on this occasion by the businessman’s surprising interference in the war caused by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the anger of the Kyiv government at give your support to the invader.
According to Musk, a character with a recognized ability to show off, thanks to him a major disaster was aborted, “a possible nuclear war”, once imbued with the superhero costume he fantasized about as a child.
As a child, Isaacson maintains, he was bullied at school in his country of origin (South Africa). He found refuge in reading comics. There he transformed into one of his admired idols, running to the rescue of the planet.
Offering the feeling that he believes the world is in his hands, as if he were still in one of those epic adventures, the biographer says that Musk deactivated his Starlink satellites, which he had lent to Ukraine at low cost, to prevent an attack against the Russian military fleet about 100 kilometers off the coast of Crimea, a territory annexed by Moscow in 2014. Based on this story, Kyiv sent six underwater drones loaded with explosives, guided on their route by the light of Starlink to reach their objective. Once that connectivity was deactivated, the devices were dragged to the coast without causing damage.
This situation put the protagonist in a moral dilemma, above Putin and his counterparts in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and in the United States, Joe Biden, the most visible head of the NATO bloc. “If the Ukraine attack had been successful in sinking the Russian fleet, that would have been a small Pearl Harbor and led to a major escalation,” Musk said. “We don’t want to be part of this,” he insisted in his confession. “At that point, the risk of a third world war was high,” he reiterated. When the Ukrainians begged and insisted that he restore communication, he expressed his admiration for the technology and capabilities of these drones, but, in the role of military expert, he replied that Kyiv “goes too far and invites strategic defeat.”
Always from this version, the matter was discussed with Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, and with the head of the joint staff, General Mark Milley. He expressed to them that he did not want Starlink to be used for offensive purposes. His talks extended to the Russian ambassador in Washington to guarantee that his satellites will only be used in defensive missions.
But he offered to end the war with a peace plan in which there were new referendums in the Donbass and other regions controlled by Moscow (the Russians already made a farce of a consultation), accepting that Crimea was still Russia and that Ukraine was not. I would enter NATO, according to what Putin wants.
The White House, with President Biden traveling to India for the G-20 meeting, was silent this Friday. Not so Ukraine, where they ranted against the businessman. “Sometimes a mistake is much more than a mistake,” said Mikhailo Podoliak, Zelensky’s adviser. “By not allowing, with Starlink interference, Ukrainian drones to destroy a part of the Russian military fleet, Elon Musk allowed this fleet to launch Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a consequence, civilians, including children, are being killed because of this,” he stressed on the platform X (formerly Twitter) owned by the billionaire.
“This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego. However, the question remains: why do some desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to kill? By doing this, do they understand that they are doing evil and encouraging evil? ”He asked himself.
Musk later responded in a message thread on his network in which he denied that he ordered the disconnection and stressed that he does not want to get involved in the conflict. “Space X did not deactivate anything, the Starlinks in that region were not activated,” he assured. “There was an emergency request from the (Ukrainian) government to activate Starlink to Sevastopol, the capital of Crimea and a key port as a base for the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. The obvious intention was to sink most of the anchored Russian fleet. “If I had accepted their request, SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and an escalation of the conflict,” he stressed.
Walter Isaacson, master of celebrity biographies, knew of the power of this type of contemporary Leonardo Da Vinci (another of his biographers), who is equally at home with electric cars (Tesla), social networks (X) or rockets (Space). X), business to which its deployment of Starlink satellites is linked.
This author also knows very well how to feed the advertising machine. On this occasion, the leak of a chapter on the war in Ukraine – first to CNN and then in its entirety to The Washington Post – has put his book at the top.
Musk, critical of the shipment of arms and economic aid to Ukraine, which has shown sympathy for Putin, wonders “How am I in this war?” (chapter title). There is an answer. He entered at the request of Ukraine, on February 24, when Russia launched the “special military operation.” A Russian computer attack disabled the satellites of Viasat, an American company, that provided coverage to Ukraine.
Military defense was almost impossible. The Ukrainian authorities used Twitter to ask Musk for help, who accepted the offer. This is how Starlink entered the war, it seems as the fifth columnist.