It's not a good look for Elon Musk. Surely, he didn't try to make money off of desperate Hurricane Helene survivors, right? Well, that's exactly what he's being accused of.
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It's all in the fine print, my friends. Elon Musk pledged to give Hurricane Helene victims 30 days worth of free internet via Starlink. As someone who coasted off their mobile hotspot when Helene hit Greenville, it was a rough couple of days. I was lucky Spectrum came through, but not everyone can say the same.
However, Musk forgot to mention that you have to pay over $400 for the Starlink hardware first. Whoopsie, right? Starlink announced on its official page that the service was free for 30 days for Helene survivors. Musk even added that Starlink terminals would work automatically "without [the] need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane Helene."
Elon Musk Isn't Offering Free Internet
However, The Register reported that anyone who tries to sign up still has to pay $400. That money is for the dish as well as shipping and handling. Additionally, Musk's company automatically renews the subscription for $120 a month after the 30-day grace period.
As you can imagine, people are pretty angry with Musk for what sounds like profiteering. Sure, you get a free 30 days, but it's hardly free. You are still paying hundreds. With communications down, it sounds like Musk is making money off the tragedy of others.
Kinney Baughman, a resident of Boone, NC, told The Register that Starlink was "craft bait and switch...meant to take advantage of people instead of helping them."
"There may be isolated scenarios when what [Musk] is offering will be a service," Baughman said. "But we're talking about cases where someone's way up a holler, doesn't have access to cell service, and where the flooding has broken their fiber. You're looking at months before you get service. In that case you might want to think about [Starlink]."
"Assuming someone can get over the one or two, if not more, bridges that are down and physically get their hands on the device, you still need electricity to run the thing," Baughman also added "Thousands of people are out of power still and hundreds if not thousands of those don't have a generator."
