As Elon Musk likes to do whenever disaster hits somewhere in the world, Hurricane Helene was another opportunity to show off his generosity and make himself part of the news. This time, Musk made headlines with a promise that SpaceX Starlink would be free for 30 days to help in places where fiber and cellular infrastructure might have been knocked offline. More than 200 people have been identified as dead in the disaster.
But the catch is that it’s really not free at all. It really looks like not much more than a glorified new-customer promotion.
For one, anyone interested in taking up the offer still has to pay approximately $400 for the dish itself (including shipping and tax) and they’re getting automatically rolled into a $120 per-month contract when the free month ends.
You know if the fucker literally just shipped a couple of these to like local government officials and asked them to be installed in libraries or whatever and then gave free internet with the idea that it would be shared access.
He could probably get all the good will, government officials might buy in for emergency connection access and get more money and people would have all that warm fuzzy feelings of remembering when they joined together and had community and internet thanks to this horse bartering fucker.
But no, he had to want some extra cash he doesn’t need.
I don’t get the wealthy.
Elon, it’s a great gesture, I’m sure those poor people will be delighted to at least be able to communicate freely.
It’s nothing, I… Hold on, did you say poor? How about we changed the plan a bit?