Yassmin Abdel-Magied writes:

Once upon a time, my dream was to work for Elon Musk.

I was a young mechanical engineering graduate with hopes of inventing the machines of the future. Unlike other tech billionaires whose inventions existed in boring binary and flat 2D, Musk seemed like a man from a different era, a man after my own heart. He wanted to revolutionize the automobile, travel to space, shift earth and change the world, and he wanted to do it all through the transformative power of mechanical engineering. Four years into my technical career and at the precipice of a life-changing decision, a friend asked who I most wanted to work for. My answer was immediate.

“If Elon Musk called me right now, told me to drop everything and come work on his project,” I said on the phone as I paced the cold, concrete sidewalks of Melbourne, “I’d do it. No questions asked.” I ignored the fact that he was not a trained engineer but actually a student of arts and science, turning the glaring inconsistency into part of the myth. I would say I ignored his politics, but I simply didn’t know them.

Oh, how things have changed.

Like many of my peers today, the first thing that comes to mind when hearing the name Elon Musk is not, “What a transformative innovator in engineering!” My thoughts are more along the lines of, “What has he done this time?” Has he tried to dismantle another U.S. government agency? Has he taken over another beloved social media platform, or attempted to colonize another town? Has he joked about making another racist gesture in public or, finally, flown himself to Mars?

The scope and scale of the absurdities attributable to the richest man in the world boggle the mind. However, unlike many of my peers, as a Sudanese woman, there remains a part of me that finds it challenging to entirely disregard his achievements. Even as the government department he launched slashed USAID funding, shuttering 80% of Sudanese emergency kitchens amid a gruesome conflict and worsening the deadliest famine anywhere on Earth in the last half-century, Musk’s innovations were playing a critical role in ensuring the safety of millions of Sudanese people. Enter SpaceX’s Starlink.

Starlink was launched by Musk’s private rocket company, SpaceX, in 2019, with the aim of providing a global broadband network. The network utilizes a huge constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to provide high-speed internet around the world. Users connect to the network using a small, Starlink-provided satellite dish and a Wi-Fi router, making it ideal for geographically isolated locations or contexts, like Sudan, in which traditional telecommunications infrastructure is unavailable.

Internet shutdowns began soon after the conflict erupted in Khartoum on April 15, 2023. It was clear from the outset that telecommunications would be a key front of the war. Within hours, Sudan’s largest internet provider, MTN, blocked internet services across the country at the behest of the government telecommunications regulator (ostensibly the Sudanese Armed Forces). Other internet service providers, including Zain and Sudani, rapidly followed suit. As fighting raged on, infrastructure was systematically targeted, destroyed and shut down by the warring parties, with entire regions cut off and civilians left without phone or internet access for months at a time. In February 2024, a nationwide blackout severed communications for 30 million people for almost a month.

In Sudan, disruption to communication is catastrophic. Not only does it deny the population access to information on safe areas and routes, aid distribution and health services, it strikes at the heart of household funds. Cash is scarce. Without the internet, mobile banking — the primary functioning financial system in the country — grinds to a halt, forcing the already faltering economy to a standstill. “In this context,” Affan Cheema, director of international programs at Islamic Relief Worldwide, tells New Lines, “Starlink has been a lifeline and the only option for many people.” [Continue reading…]