Elon Musk just crossed a dangerous line

TheWall Street Journal and CBS News confirmed that Elon Musk was involved in the decision to stall out Starshield, the military version of Starlink, when Ukraine needed it most. As Russia launched its biggest attack since the invasion, Musk “capped the speeds at which Ukrainian hardware could stay connected to the satellite-based network, the people said, rendering some offensive drones and interceptor drones virtually useless,” the Journalsaid.

It’s unlikely Musk acted alone. Reuters reported last week the decision to sabotage Ukraine came from the White House, the implication being it was Donald Trump’s. But Musk said publicly that the administration did it. Administration sources said publicly Musk did it. Common sense says both did. The Journalsaid Musk’s team contacted the White House to “coordinate messaging.” A source told the Telegraph: “The reality is that they were both in it.”

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is acting like what’s been done can’t be undone. He has put up with Trump’s humiliation tactics for years to maintain access to weapons and intelligence he needs to liberate his country. But now, he is no longer biting his tongue.

“People have to hear reality,” Zelensky said. Whether it’s lifting old sanctions on Russia, waiving new ones or sandbagging Starshield, it illustrates Trump’s affinity for dictators, he said, and that Trump has taken the wrong side of history in deciding to help Vladimir Putin.

US Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, told Anderson Cooper that Ukraine was winning the war over the course of the last year, despite Trump’s refusal to maintain previous levels of support, until Putin “called in a favor, using whatever lever he has over the president.”

Murphy called recent choices by the White House, including last night’s decision to withhold Patriot missile shipments to Ukraine, “a pattern of behavior” in which the president "has decided he’s gonna put Ukraine in a position where they may be pressured to capitulate … a strategy to put Russia in the most powerful position possible to gain a settlement.”

While Trump deserves to be treated as if he has crossed a line, so does Musk. The fact of his involvement in a conspiracy to destroy Ukraine’s sovereignty should trigger a credibility crisis. Indeed, Heather Cox Richardson compared him to none other than Benedict Arnold.

“Musk’s decision to change the course of a war with ‘a seeming flick of a switch,’ taking it upon himself, with or without the complicity of White House officials, to reverse the foreign policy of the United States of America for the benefit of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, is a stunning assumption of power reminiscent of Revolutionary War general Benedict Arnold’s weakening of the Americans’ defenses and draining of supplies at the strategic fort at West Point to enable the British to capture it before he was discovered and defected,” she wrote.

Musk seems aware of the possible consequences of showing his whole ass. "After what was described as a ‘night of carnage’ in Kyiv because of the blackout," the Telegraphreported, Musk "had been alarmed about the possibility of adverse consumer reaction in Europe.”

I would guess his fear is rooted in more than concern for his companies, government contracts and profit margins. He has made an enemy out of a sovereign nation whose fate is bound to those of others allied in the most powerful security apparatus on the planet. Governments protect men like Elon Musk. They are how he became an alleged trillionaire. But government protection becomes optional in times of war. Zelensky needs Starshield. He doesn’t need Musk. If I were an oligarch like him, I would be careful around open windows.

In America, among the Democrats, there’s growing apprehension about Musk’s "stunning assumption of power." “If it’s one man, Elon Musk, who is dictating our foreign policy, then he puts the United States at enormous risk,” US Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, said today. “He’s the one who decides whether Ukraine, out there fighting on the frontlines to protect its democracy, lives or dies? No. We should not have one man in that position.”

The Timesreported last week that if the Democrats regain control, they might investigate Musk’s AI interests, his foreign entrenchments and what he did as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. His role in a conspiracy against Ukraine adds another item to the list.

Politicoreported this week that the House Democrats are already coming up with a game plan for when they have the subpoena power. Texas Congressman Greg Casar said “our committees need to be doing oversight both into the Trump administration, but I think even more importantly or equally importantly, into the corporations and ultrarich people who have tried to corrupt our government. And, of course, Elon Musk is on that list.”

In the spring, the Democrats introduced a bill that would unwind mergers made in the second Trump administration. More generally, the Democrats are focused on anti-monopoly enforcement and price-fixing amid a cost-of-living crisis, as well as political graft. Musk’s former position at DOGE yielded hundreds of billions in contracts. He got out of federal investigations and avoided billions in fines. His companies constitute a virtual trust.

And the Democrats are in the mood for trust-busting.

Filmmaker Alex Gibney made a documentary about Musk that shatters his reputation as a genius inventor. He told Piers Morgan last night that contrary to popular belief, Musk has never invented anything. His real genius is stock pumping, Gibney said. “That is where he really shines. He’s managed to take companies, which have a rather mediocre profit-and-loss record, and make himself through stock pumping the richest man in the world.”

Stock pumping is market manipulation. It’s illegal under federal law and New York state law. I’m reminded of that time when Tucker Carlson asked Musk what would happen to him if Kamala Harris won the 2024 election. “How long will my prison sentence be?” he said.

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Musk understands the stakes – that he has crossed the line, that there’s no going back, and that all that’s left is to pour hundreds of millions into the midterms in the hopes of staying out of jail. He is the single biggest backer of Ken Paxton, the corrupt and impeached attorney general of Texas. He is literally trying to buy a senator.

No one elected Elon Musk. A majority of the governed did not grant him authority over them. He has no constituency beyond Twitter followers. He has demonstrated unconscionable disloyalty. If he can pull the plug on Ukraine’s defense, he can pull the plug on America’s.