The southern United States was hit hard in late September and early October with back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton, causing havoc – with Florida particularly affected.
For residents affected by the strong winds, rain and flooding brought by these extreme weather events, Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service offered free access to the technology for 30 days, allowing them to use vital online services even if they were without power or displaced from their homes.
Starlink terminals will now operate automatically without the need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane Helene https://t.co/Nu8MbPWIjl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 2 October 2024
But what Musk didn’t explain was that users would still have to pay nearly $400 for the necessary Starlink hardware to use the service, The Register revealed, along with a video showing proof. That’s not even mentioning the difficulty of getting the dish in the first place, with postal and delivery services reduced and many people still unable to return home to collect a delivery.
The registry also detailed that those who sign up for the free service will then be moved to a $120-a-month plan at the end of the 30-day offer. Existing Starlink customers who want to avoid their usual payments while they recover from the hurricanes will have to jump through a few hoops with no guarantee of when the fee will be waived.
A resident of Boone, North Carolina — an area that sustained significant damage from Hurricane Helene — told The Register that the offer was “a devious bait and switch … intended to take advantage of people rather than help you.”
“There can be isolated scenarios, when what [Musk] offers, will be a service,” Kinney Baughman, a philosophy professor, told the publication. “But we’re talking about cases where someone is coming up a notch, doesn’t have access to cell service, and where the flood has broken their fiber. You are looking at months before you get service. In that case, you may want to reconsider [Starlink].”
Musk’s posts on his X platform (formerly known as Twitter), which offers the free service, had been seen by close to 40 million people on October 14. And to be sure, no person or company is obligated to provide discounts or free services in the face of an emergency, but transparency about what is actually offered in such moments is important. Even without a discount, Starlink service could be a valuable solution for many affected by one or both of the recent hurricanes.
Still, that’s a whole lot of eyes reading a seemingly generous offer, and yet the majority may not fully understand the whole story. Starlink’s intentions may have been pure, but one could easily see how the one month free offer could be seen as an opportunity to add new subscribers rather than an act of charity – comparable to the various freebies offered by most internet companies around the country at any time, as the offer is not made without conditions.
The 53-year-old’s environmental credentials are mixed. As CEO of the electric car brand Tesla, he has undoubtedly helped remove a number of polluting, dirty fuel-powered vehicles from the roads around the world. Electric cars require extra energy to mine and manufacture their batteries, but Reuters has shown that a Tesla Model 3 only needs to be driven about 15,000 miles before it makes up for it and starts to provide massive reductions in carbon pollution compared to a Toyota Corolla.
On the flip side, he is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX, a company that designs and launches spacecraft. While one could argue that space exploration is a noble field that can lead to valuable resources, opportunities, and advances in science, SpaceX is nonetheless responsible for significant environmental damage—from the heat-trapping emissions its rockets leave behind to the company’s release of pollutants into Texas water sources, as NBC News detailed.
He has also pledged his support in the run-up to the US presidential election for former President Donald Trump, a candidate who – apart from politics more broadly – has often gone on record showing support for dirty energy industries and skepticism about the greener transition energy sources , even at times calling climate change a “hoax” before at some point agreeing that humans play a role in it. And while Musk may have other reasons for this support, the fact remains that he is supporting a candidate whose previous administration rolled back over 100 environmental regulations.
For Musk’s sake, perhaps using his influence to encourage both parties to make further investments in green technologies—and perhaps reforming some of SpaceX’s practices to reduce pollution—will help the people of hurricane-prone areas more than his “free” Starlink offer.
Sign up for our free newsletter for good news and useful tipsand don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
