“Be Quiet, Small Man” – Musk & Rubio Wreck Polish FM Over Fake Starlink Scandal

Remix News reports that Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski stated on the X platform that it is Poland that pays for Starlinks for Ukraine, to which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk replied: “Be quiet, small man.”

“Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year. 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,” wrote Sikorski.

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

Musk also claimed he never threatened to cut Ukraine off from his satellite network, even if he disagreed with the war continuing. 

Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year.
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. https://t.co/WaJWCklgPE

— Radosław Sikorski (@sikorskiradek) March 9, 2025

Secretary of State Marco Rubio entered the spat by posting a rebuke to Sikorski’s post, saying he was “making things up.”

“No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink,” he posted, adding, “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.”

Just making things up.
No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink

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 https://t.co/ImeiHFgaaw

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 9, 2025

Musk says that Starlink will “never” shut off its terminals in Ukraine.

Russian forces have so far been unable to jam the satellite communications network, making it vital for Ukraine’s operations.

“To be extremely clear, no matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals,” Musk wrote on X.

“We would never do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip,” he added.

As Andrew Korybko explains, Sikorski behaved undiplomatically by breathing life into those rumors when he should have first checked with Rubio before publicly addressing them, thus suggesting that he either reacted emotionally without thinking this through or he deliberately wanted to create a scandal. He, Tusk, and their ilk previously made defamatory statements about Trump prior to last year’s election by smearing him as a “proto-fascist” and even a “Russian spy”, which were documented here and analyzed here.

It therefore can’t be ruled out that Sikorski did indeed intend to discredit Trump’s pragmatic approach to Ukraine, particularly his decision to cut off its military and intelligence aid, by taking for granted that the rumors about Musk plotting to do the same with Starlink were true and publicly reacting accordingly. His motivation might have been to signal to Poland’s peers with whom it’s competing for leadership of post-conflict Europe that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition will stand up to the US in support of Ukraine.

Sikorski and Tusk, who are respectively Anglophiles and Germanophiles, prioritize relations with the UK and the German-led EU over their country’s strategic partnership with the US. This is in spite of Poland being poised to become the US’ top partner in Europe if it plays its cards right, which is still possible with the ruling liberal-globalists even if they win May’s presidential election but much more likely if the conservative or populist candidate wins instead. This insight places Sikorski’s post into context.

He arguably wanted to make it seem like the US is unilaterally reneging on a commercial contract of national security significance for Ukraine as a favor to Russia, thus casting more doubts about its reliability as an ally and consequently worsening the transatlantic rift. Musk and Rubio therefore swiftly put Sikorski in his place so as to deter other Foreign Ministers from doing anything similar in the future with the unfriendly aim of further worsening the US’ already tense ties with the EU and NATO.