A Great Man Writing About Great Men

Doing PR for The Great And Good disguised as journalism/history has always been Isaacson's schtick, and this is what happens when the person you are doing PR for makes an angry phone call.

To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a…

— Walter Isaacson (@WalterIsaacson) September 9, 2023

Rolling the tape:

Throughout the evening and into the night, he personally took charge of the situation. Allowing the use of Starlink for the attack, he concluded, could be a disaster for the world. So he secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast. As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.

The linked piece in its entirety is such hagiography. Musk being brilliant, people telling Musk he's brilliant, Isaacson typing it all up. (ht Ed Zitron)