Residents of parts of southern Appalachia that were affected by Hurricane Helene are set to benefit from Starlink, the satellite internet service from SpaceX.
In March 2022, the White House stated that it intends to launch several ten of enclosed Starlink ground terminals that communicate with satellites to deliver Internet services to the populations living in the wilderness.
And the company has said that about 500 Starlink kits are being used by private actors to aid in the disaster response. SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk stated that the company is going to cover costs in the affected zones.
The connectivity comes as many communities still cannot access phone and Internet connections.
But with that connectivity has come a less-welcome element: politics.
Ex-president Donald Trump claimed to have talked to Musk, arguably one of his biggest backers, about the use of Starlink in the impacted regions.
That elicited a response from a Biden administration spokesperson who pointed out that the Federal Emergency Management Agency already had Starlink deliveries on the ground.
It came after the federal government has provided some answer and the query into what the federal government is ready and where it puts FEMA apparatus before the hurricane.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took a tour of the area on Wednesday.
While Musk has not explicitly link Starlink to any criticism of the recovery efforts, he has seemed perfectly fine associating the internet satellite service with Trump, retweeting on X the former president’s claims that he had asked Starlinks be sent and stating on Tuesday that Trump had informed him of a need for more Starlink terminals in North Carolina.
“Since the Hurricane Helene disaster SpaceX tried to deliver as many Starlink terminals as possible to the necessary areas,” Musk shared on X Tuesday.
This morning, @realdonaldtrump informed me of other folks who require Starlink Internet in North Carolina.” Originally we send them terminals immediately.”
They added that it is not the first time Musk appeared to politicise access to Starlink in a manner they claimed was antithetical to the goals of the Biden administration.
Earlier this year, Musk was under pressure from the Ukrainian government which accused him of reportedly wanting to restrict Starlink services for its military. In a series of tweets on X, Musk offered his account of what transpired at the company.
“The Starlink regions that are in question were not activated. SpaceX never shut down anything,” Musk replied to a thread X on Ukraine report that was published in a book about the war.
“There was an emergency request from the authorities to immediately turn on Starlink up to Sevastopol,” he said, referring to the largest city in Crimea which is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
“The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” Musk said. “Had I agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be directly involved in a significant act of war and escalation.”
Prior to that, Musk asked the U.S government to start funding Ukraine’s usage of the network which he said SpaceX was going to lose a lot of money in deploying. Ultimately, Musk convinced the Pentagon to buy the terminals for Ukraine.
Musk has also been accused of sabotaging the chance of Taiwan, and the U.S forces stationed there, to access some versions of the service.
In February, Musk received a letter from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party asking him why U.S. troops stationed on Taiwan weren’t able to access StarShield, which experts describe as a militarized version of Starlink.
A Pentagon contract With House Musk said he was fully compliant and SpaceX dismissed the House’s allegation.
They wanted to object to majority ownership of a Starlink-based venture requested by Taiwan, which the island nation deemed incompatible with its business laws, as reported by CNN.
The Taiwanese officials also raised concerns from Musk’s business associations with China where his Tesla electric automobile manufacturing firm has an assembly plant, and where he is also constructing a brand-new Gig factory.
What if we depended on Starlink, and Musk reduced the satellite internet’s availability because he has China’s market to attend?” Yisuo Tzeng, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taiwan-based think tank backed by the island’s ministry of defense, said in the Times. That is something we have to factor in.
Washington’s multiyear push to privatize America’s space industry has entwined Musk’s businesses with the federal government.
NASA recently contracted SpaceX to take two astronauts stuck at the ISS, for a rendezvous that is currently slated for February.
Besides Starlink and SpaceX, Musk also controls Tesla and X, earlier Twitter — and he has boasted about the influence he now has.
This is the kind of Tweet that Musk posted on X last year, Between tesla, starlink & twitter; I may have more real time global economic data in one head than anyone ever.
