By Jacki Thrapp

Elon Musk’s Starlink will offer free services in Venezuela for nearly a month, the company announced in a Jan. 3 post on X.

“Starlink is providing free broadband service to the people of Venezuela through February 3, ensuring continued connectivity,” Starlink said.

The free service was part of a move to support people in Venezuela after the U.S. bombed the country and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, early on Jan. 3.

The Starlink announcement came hours before SpaceX’s Falcon 9, also owned by Musk, launched 29 new Starlink satellites into space from Florida, adding to its total of more than 9,000 operational satellites orbiting space.

Starlink provides high-speed internet from satellites and can reach remote areas, which often have issues receiving internet. It’s used by more than 9 million people.

Musk, who worked as a special government employee for 130 days to lead the Department of Government Efficiency in the early days of Trump’s second term, publicly supported the surprise Jan. 3 operation and congratulated President Donald Trump and the military for pulling it off.

“This is a win for the world and a clear message to evil dictators everywhere,” Musk wrote in an X post on Jan. 3.

Maduro and his wife were at their residence in a military complex in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, when U.S. special operations forces began their operation on Jan. 3.

“He was in a house that was more like a fortress than a house. It had steel doors. It had what they call the safety space, where it’s, you know, solid steel all around,” Trump said.

Trump said Maduro got “bum rushed so fast” that he didn’t get into his safe room.

“It was very complex, extremely complex, the whole maneuver, the landings, the number of aircraft, which were a massive number, the number of helicopters, different type of helicopters, different type of fighter jets,” Trump said.

U.S. forces quickly flew him out of Venezuela and onto a warship headed for New York City, where he is facing charges for narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Maduro was accused of leading a narcotics trafficking ring with a connection to Colombia’s left-wing FARC guerrillas, according to a criminal indictment filed in March 2020.