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Notes -
Elon Musk's Shadow Rule
tl;dr After initially donating Starlink terminals and providing free internet at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Musk realized that it's actually pretty expensive to keep it on in a warzone, and asked the Pentagon to help pay for it, or he would turn it off. Eventually they hammered out a contract. Also, he proposed a peace plan involving Russia keeping some territory, which was roundly booed.
By all accounts Starlink has been a massive boon to the Ukrainians, since their ability to communicate basically hinges on starlink. But because he wasn't willing to keep providing it for free, he's a pro putin shill and a traitor to the US, and the service should be nationalized. It's not like the US and other governments haven't dragged their feet on providing the best firepower (ATACMS, for example).
Perhaps the counteroffensive grinding to a halt means a new scapegoat is needed.
IMO didn’t he violate the Logan Act by tweeting about diplomacy? Along with a million other people floating diplomatic plans. Going after Flynn on Logan Act violations always seemed like the most obvious lawfare simply because it’s never really been used and it’s broad enough I think you could construe Musks and many many others as in violation.
And it’s an issue I see with a lot of the novel legal theories. You can stretch a lot of laws so it matters that you have precedence using something a certain way.
Do you genuinely think that encouraging diplomatic solutions via tweet genuinely constitutes negotiating on behalf of the US government? What did he offer in these supposed negotiations?
Here’s the text
“Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.“
I believe a tweet can count as indirectly. You could actually have very engaged conversations online without ever directly talking. Musks tweets his thoughts. Putin blogs or tweets his thoughts. Then you give your thoughts on Putin thoughts. And then Musks controls the communication channels in the war via Starlink. So he can give Russia a real advantage on the battlefield. I think there’s a clear attempt to influence Russia - “a lot of us Americans are interested in this deal”. There is obviously a dispute since there’s war.
The statute doesn’t say anything about “negotiating on behalf of the US government”. It only says “intent to influence a foreign government”.
So yes as that statute is written I think he’s guilty and it’s not even that “novel” of a legal theory. Though it’s likely he would win later by challenging the law on first amendment grounds but that’s later so maybe 3 years in jail before the law is overturned. So still punished.
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