He advocated for the U.S. to negotiate with the Russian leader and tweeted a “peace plan” he claimed to have invented. That plan involved ceding swathes of Ukraine to Russian control. Reid Hoffman, who co-founded PayPal with Musk, said his former colleague seemed to have “bought what Putin was selling, hook, line, and sinker.”
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, soldiers began losing connection on the battlefield, forcing battalions to retreat or commanders to drive into battle just to be in radio range. U.S. and Ukrainian officials told The New Yorker they believed SpaceX had cut off the internet terminals in certain areas, including major battlefields—including Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Donetsk.
During a call in October 2022 with Colin Kahl, at the time the under-secretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon, Musk said he could see the “entire war unfolding” through Starlink activity. “This was, like, three minutes before he said, ‘Well, I had this great conversation with Putin.’” Kahl told The New Yorker. “And we were, like, ‘Oh, dear, this is not good.’”