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Starlink support for Ukraine will exceed $100M by end of year Starlink support for Ukraine will exceed $100M by end of year

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Starlink support for Ukraine will exceed $100M by end of year

Credit: Starlink

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Starlink support for Ukraine will exceed $100 million by the end of the year, Elon Musk said earlier today. The SpaceX CEO’s response was to an article by Financial Times that claimed that the Starlink terminals and services were paid for. Elon Musk pointed out that the claim was false and corrected it. He’s also said previously that the operation has cost SpaceX $80 million.

The FT article mainly focused on Starlink outages for Ukrainian soldiers serving on the front lines. “As for what’s happening on the battlefield, that’s classified,” Elon Musk said.

https://twitter.com/ArtfulTakedown/status/1578422660614467590

According to the article which cited Roman Sinicyn, a coordinator at the Serhiy Prytula Charity, the outages could be occurring because SpaceX was trying to prevent the misuse of Starlink by Russian forces. “It is absolutely clear to me that this is being done by representatives of Starlink to prevent the usage of their technology by Russian occupation forces. The Ukrainian military and SpaceX need to coordinate more closely,” he told FT.

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The report follows the backlash that Elon Musk received for his Ukraine-Russia peace plan. Naturally, the outages may add fuel to the fire but Elon Musk has clarified his continued support for Ukraine despite his thoughts on peace and the reaction of the leaders involved.

https://twitter.com/BobbyCandles/status/1578411167923437568

Elon Musk also said that he is in regular contact with, Mykhailo Fedorov Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation Along with spending over $80 million to support Ukraine, SpaceX and Elon Musk have also been put at serious risk of a Russian cyberattack, Elon Musk said.

Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal confirmed that he has repeatedly used Starlink in several frontline locations in the past ten days and never had any issues. Some of these locations such as Donetsk and Kharkiv were just retaken.

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Christopher Miller, the author of the FT article, confirmed that he’d spoken with soldiers who said the terminals were working as well as soldiers who said they weren’t working.

Tesmanian’s Eva Fox, who is Ukrainian and has had to flee for her life with her family a few times pointed out that people shouldn’t fall for false information. “Starlink doesn’t disable services for Ukrainian soldiers. Simply, as in everything, there are some technical details that should be solved by professionals!!!”

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Teslarati recently interviewed Gia Santos who is volunteering with the Sons of Liberty International in Ukraine. The nonprofit is helping to train Ukrainian soldiers and they’ve been using Starlink. You can read that interview here.

Your feedback is important. If you have any comments, or concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.

Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. You can also follow Teslarati on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

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Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge writer covering Tesla, Elon Musk, EVs, and clean energy & supports Tesla's mission. Johnna also interviewed Elon Musk and you can listen here

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Elon Musk

Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

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Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.

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Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.

The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.

Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.

These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.

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Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.

Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.

The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.

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Elon Musk

FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

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Credit: @SecWar/X

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.

The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.

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Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.

“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.

Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.

Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.

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Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.

SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.

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Energy

Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses

The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.

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Credit: Tesla Energy/X

Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.

The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.

According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.

The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.

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Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.

Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.

Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.

The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.

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Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.

The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.

At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.

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