Claim that Musk will supply hypersonic jet for Ukrainian war effort lacks substance

Elon Musk’s private rocket company, SpaceX, is already providing internet service to help Ukrainians battle Russian invaders. A recent blog post suggests Musk is going bigger — working with the United States government to bring "something which could play a key role in a confrontation with an aggressive Russia."

"Finally: The U.S. & Elon Musk reveal new hypersonic jet to help Ukraine," the blog post’s headline says. 

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As The Washington Post reported, the United States Agency for International Development bought more than 1,330 high-speed internet enabling Starlink terminals from SpaceX to send to Ukraine, and SpaceX donated nearly 3,670 terminals and the internet service itself. The Ukrainians have sometimes used the service to link to drones for artillery strikes. But we found no credible reports about development or delivery of a hypersonic jet. 

Neither the Defense Department nor SpaceX responded to PolitiFact’s queries about the blog. Although the post says, "Now the time has come for a hypersonic aircraft," it offers no other details about the jet.

Searching Google for other reports about Musk, Ukraine and a hypersonic jet yielded two kinds of results — YouTube videos in the vein of this blog post, which make a big claim without evidence, and widespread media coverage of Starlink. 

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“NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says that ‘if Trump surrenders Ukraine to Putin, he will personally expel the United States from the alliance.’”

In a September article in the Kyiv Independent, reporter Daryna Antoniuk wrote that among the Ukrainian military, Musk is "often half-jokingly referred to as ‘Saint Elon.’" But that’s because of Starlink, which "keeps many Ukrainians, most importantly the military, online despite power outages and Russia’s on the country’s internet infrastructure." 

We rate this post False.

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