The man who’s ruled by Twitter. | Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge
Apparently, the US Department of Defense had a $145 million check “ready to hand to me, literally,” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told Walter Isaacson, according to CNN. “Then Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter.”
Elon Musk had been supplying internet connectivity in Ukraine through SpaceX’s Starlink for free. In October, the company told the US government that it wouldn’t continue the free service. After the story went public, Musk changed his mind: “The hell with it … we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”
Musk plays an outsize role in geopolitics thanks to SpaceX, Ronan Farrow reported for The New Yorker a few weeks ago. Through Starlink, Musk has taken on an outsize…
