Elon Musk appears to have backed down from his earlier plea to have the Pentagon pay for Starlink connectivity in Ukraine, and can proceed to fund the web satellites being utilized by the war-torn nation.

On Saturday, Musk despatched out a seemingly pissed off tweet saying, “The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

SpaceX had reportedly requested the Pentagon to pay roughly $120 million for Ukraine’s use of its Starlink satellites for the remainder of the 12 months. The firm additionally needed the U.S. authorities to step in and pay about $400 million for subsequent 12 months, based on paperwork obtained by CNN. “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of presidency gross sales, Bryon Hargis, wrote in a letter to the Pentagon in September, based on CNN.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, SpaceX despatched round 20,000 Starlink terminals to Kyiv to supply on-line entry to Ukrainian troopers and civilians. The world’s richest man has boasted about his firm’s efforts to assist maintain Ukraine linked. However, 85% of the Starlink terminals despatched to Ukraine had been already absolutely or partially funded by authorities sources, based on the paperwork obtained by CNN.

Earlier this month, Musk claimed on Twitter that the Starlink operation in Ukraine “has cost SpaceX $80M & will exceed $100M by end of year.” In July, Ukraine’s General Valerii Zaluzhniy requested nearly 8,000 new Starlink terminals however SpaceX expressed concern about with the ability to present what was requested, based on the paperwork seen by CNN.

Musk has additionally come underneath fireplace just lately for suggesting a peace plan by which Ukraine accepts Russia’s declare over a few of its territory in an effort to finish the struggle. The suggestion prompted Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, to inform Musk to “fuck off.” In response to the claims made relating to SpaceX now not eager to pay for Starlink terminals in Ukraine, Musk tweeted, “We’re just following [Melnyk’s] recommendation.”

It’s not clear what occurred to trigger Musk to backtrack on his alleged request to have the federal government pay for Starlink terminals in Ukraine, however the billionaire completed off his passive aggressive rant on Twitter by pivoting to a philanthropist persona. In response to a remark that learn, “No good deed goes unpunished,” Musk wrote, “Even so, we should still do good deeds.”