A long, messy affair between US regulators and a Ukrainian businessman named Max Polyakov seems to have finally been resolved.
On Tuesday, Polyakov’s venture capital firm Noosphere Venture Partners announced that the US government has released him and his related companies from all conditions imposed upon them in the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This decision comes more than two years after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the US Air Force forced Polyakov to sell his majority stake in the Texas-based launch company Firefly.
A turbulent past
This rocket company was founded in 2014 by an engineer named Tom Markusic, who ran into financial difficulty as he sought to develop the Alpha rocket. Markusic had to briefly halt Firefly’s operations before Polyakov, a colorful and controversial Ukrainian businessman, swooped in and provided a substantial infusion of cash into the company.
The pair had a turbulent relationship, which is chronicled in the book When the Heavens Went on Sale by journalist Ashlee Vance. As part of his reporting, Vance traveled to Ukraine with Polyakov and remained in regular contact throughout the ordeal.
“The US government quite happily allowed Polyakov to pump $200 million into Firefly only to decide he was a potential spy just as the company’s first rocket was ready to launch,” Vance told Ars. “I’ve always found the timing of that suspicious and the reasoning behind the accusations against Polyakov flimsy. I obtained every document that I could get my hands on, and the most damaging claim the US could hit Polyakov with was that he hailed from Ukraine, which is near Russia, and that Russia is an enemy of the US in space.”
US officials used strong-arm tactics to force Polyakov’s hand after Firefly launched its first Alpha rocket in September 2021. Following this unsuccessful debut, the company was working toward a second attempt and preparing to ship the second Alpha to the company’s launch site at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at the end of the year. “It was actually on the trailer when I got a call from the Air Force to not ship it,” Markusic told Ars at the time. “We were really anxious to bounce back. Having that delay was really demoralizing, honestly.”
