Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has made an apparent call for peace amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iran, two countries in the Middle East that are on the brink of an all-out war in the fallout of the Gaza conflict.
We should send rockets not at each other, but rather to the stars pic.twitter.com/h4apedUrsU
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2024
Sharing a photo of a rocket, the SpaceX owner said, “We should send rockets not at each other, but rather to the stars.” His post on X, earlier known as Twitter, came at least an hour after reports emerged of an Israeli strike on an Iranian airport.
SpaceX is a California-based spacecraft manufacturer and satellite communications firm owned by Musk.
The tech entrepreneur made a two-day trip to Israel last November, during which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took him on a tour of an Israeli kibbutz destroyed during Hamas’s October 7 attack. After his Israel visit, Hamas had invited him to Gaza to see the extent of destruction caused by Israeli bombardment.
Israel had retaliated with air attacks on Gaza after the October 7 attack, sparking the war that has been raging for the past six months.
Starlink, a satellite internet network owned by SpaceX, won a license this February to operate in Israel and parts of the Gaza Strip. The Israel government had said it approved the use of Starlink’s services at a field hospital in Gaza. Starlink has also agreed to prevent Hamas from getting access to its internet services.
