One thing I heard is that the Ukrainians only need the $500 base device, but Elon “gave” them the $4,500 deluxe devices. Also that the US government paid for a third of them, and at exorbitant prices. Meaning that the actual check the US government wrote for its 1/3 of the devices ended up being more like 80% of the total cost of all devices sent. I don’t have any cites to back any of this up, so take it with the appropriate amount of salt. But if that’s true, I’m not shedding any tears about a billionaire losing money by upselling a captive audience.
On a different note, I could envision a time when US military services might want to use starlink for something. Right at this moment in time, if the US government decided to eminent domain starlink under the auspices of national security, I would just shrug and say “Yeah that sounds about right.”
Out of curiosity, how does the US military handle its communication infrastructure compared to what the Ukrainians are doing with starlink? What did we do in Afghanistan, for example?