The tech billionaire and Warsaw’s top diplomat publicly sparred over aiding Ukraine

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has told Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski to “be quiet” during an argument online over the role and funding of the Starlink satellite internet service, which is widely used by the Ukrainian army.

Musk has donated over 40,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine since 2022. Ukrainian troops are using the service to guide drone and artillery strikes, among other tasks on the battlefield.

On Sunday, Musk, an adviser to US President Donald Trump, renewed his call for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, describing his Starlink system as “the backbone of the Ukrainian army."

“Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off. What I am sickened by is years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose,” he wrote on X.

Sikorski responded to Musk’s post, noting that “Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year."

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“The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers,” the minister added.

“Be quiet, small man,” Musk replied. “You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink,” he wrote.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that Sikorski was “just making things up.”

“No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink,” Rubio stressed. “And say thank you because without Starlink, Ukraine would have lost this war long ago, and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.”

Russia's Kaliningrad Region, an exclave, shares a 232km border with the Polish Republic.

Last week, Trump suspended the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and restricted intelligence sharing, arguing that Kiev should be more receptive to his efforts to broker a peace deal.