Citing unnamed US officials, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that President Trump had to personally ask Elon Musk to stop throttling Ukrainian access to SpaceX’s military satellite network.
In response to the report, Trump said he wouldn’t “comment one way or the other” but added, “The bottom line: [Musk] put it back.” The president had previously claimed ignorance about who caused the disruptions.
Ukraine saw some connectivity improvements on Thursday but still hadn’t regained full use of the network its military depends on to counter Russian airstrikes, according to multiple outlets.
Earlier in the week, the Journal reported that Musk had secretly ordered the days-long slowdown of Ukraine’s access to Starshield, a militarized version of SpaceX’s Starlink.
The incident illustrates just how much power Musk — the world’s richest man with a history of vindictive and often erratic behavior — wields over global events.
In social media posts this month, he repeatedly called for the removal of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Starshield interruptions followed soon after.
Continued connectivity issues could pose an existential threat to Ukraine. Its military remains heavily reliant on SpaceX’s high-speed network to defend against Russian strikes, communicate across a front line stretching hundreds of miles, and control the combat drones that form a core piece of its military. One Ukrainian commander told the New York Times that one unit suffered $1 million worth of drone losses. Some of the drones fell from the sky after Musk reportedly capped Starshield speeds.
Meanwhile, Trump’s latest comments contradict claims Musk made last week after Ukraine first reported the disruptions. On X, Musk’s social network, he wrote, “Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”
While it may seem like Musk and the White House are at odds, the Trump administration has vehemently defended the near-trillionaire against European backlash. Andrew Puzder, the US ambassador to the EU, warned that Europe will face “devastating” consequences if countries within the bloc pull regulatory approval for Starlink.
Vice President JD Vance also said he understands why Musk “doesn’t want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors, without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do.” He went on to scold European leaders for waging a “regulatory and licensing war against SpaceX.” Musk then reposted a Fox News clip featuring Vance’s comments.
However, numerous Republican lawmakers have called for the Defense Department’s inspector general to probe whether the Defense Department ordered the slowdown of Ukraine’s access to SpaceX satellites.
In recent days, Musk said SpaceX could record $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2028, bragged that his company’s rocket competitors are far “behind,” and claimed his companies will someday constitute the most valuable corporation in the “solar system.”
Riding that high, he promised a public gift that could be worth more than $10 billion, based on SpaceX’s current share price. “Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America,” said Musk, who has a history of reneging on his philanthropic offers. “This will be the first of many.”
Musk said the donation would mark the beginning of “universal high income,” referring to his fantastical vision of SpaceX leading an AI revolution so remunerative that it will eradicate poverty.
Soon after, President Trump said the donated SpaceX shares would reach America’s more than 70 million children through “TRUMP ACCOUNTS,” a new program offering federally managed savings accounts for minors. The project also appears to be a way for the ultra-wealthy to curry favor with the president.
Musk owns about 4.8 billion SpaceX shares, so the gift — should he follow through with it — would reduce his 82% voting stake by less than two points.
He appears to be using the promise, in part, to deflect criticism he has faced for spending an unprecedented $442 million to tilt elections in favor of Republicans this cycle.
“Live by the sword, die by the sword,” he wrote in response to a Politico report on plans by Democratic lawmakers to investigate Musk if they retake the House. “Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets.”
Elon Musk@elonmusk
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets …
POLITICO @politico
Capitol agenda: Dem gavels are coming for Elon Musk https://t.co/x7F6oWUtdE
4:22 PM · Oct 21, 2026 · 11.1M Views
18.3K Replies · 36.6K Reposts · 260K Likes
In other recent posts, Musk said tech journalist Kara Swisher “really wants to go to prison” and that members of “the legacy media… deserve to go to prison.” He also called various Democratic lawmakers who have criticized him “retard clowns.”
This Week in Musk:
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Musk announced that SpaceX and Tesla are considering merging into a single megacorporation, an arrangement he has long flirted with as CEO and top shareholder of both companies. On a SpaceX earnings call Tuesday, he said “independent directors” are leading special committees at the companies to explore what would be the largest merger in history. “Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes,” he said. (CNBC)
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After saying he wouldn’t be involved in merger talks, Musk responded to an analyst’s post on X arguing that both Tesla and SpaceX shareholders would be “better off with a merged entity.” He called the analysis “Interesting.” According to Reuters, his public comments could “invite shareholder scrutiny” and cause delays if/when the companies attempt to merge. Musk tried to avoid the legal “minefield” during Tesla’s earnings call on Wednesday. “I think I said everything that should be said yesterday,” he said. (Reuters)
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A federal judge rejected an attempt by the Trump administration to block the NAACP’s lawsuit against xAI, a SpaceX subsidiary. The civil rights group is suing xAI for allegedly violating the Clean Air Act to power its data centers in and around Memphis, Tennessee. (Mississippi Today)
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On Musk’s X, users have shared thousands of posts claiming to unmask the woman behind a sexual assault lawsuit against several members of a Cornell University fraternity. Posts purporting to identify the lawsuit’s Jane Doe have received tens of millions of views on the platform. (Washington Post)
Semafor reported on Thursday that Elon Musk has invested $1 billion into Skydance, the conglomerate led by Larry Ellison’s son that now controls the media properties previously held by Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. Ellison, a centibillionaire who cofounded Oracle, is a longtime Musk ally. The two men previously collaborated on Musk’s leveraged buyout of Twitter, with Ellison contributing $1 billion to the effort.
More recently, TikTok’s US platform, which is partly owned by Ellison’s company, suspended the advertising account for Alex Gibney’s new documentary lambasting Musk. The platform then backtracked, blaming the ban on “an error.”
Millions of Americans are expected to receive a settlement check from Amazon credited to “President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission” in an unprecedented move coming weeks before the midterm elections.
The checks, part of a $2.5 billion settlement Amazon agreed to in 2025 for allegedly deceiving customers into signing up for Prime subscriptions, mark the first time an FTC refund has attributed the payments to a specific president, two former FTC officials told POLITICO. A notice with the checks in question uses the phrase “President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission” three times.
“The enclosed check is the result of a settlement reached by President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with Amazon.com […],” reads the notice for the check, which is issued by Amazon.
The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
To shield the wealth and voting power of CEO Mark Zuckerberg from California’s proposed tax on billionaires, Meta said it will issue Zuckerberg and other shareholders “a new class of capital stock” in January, according to a regulatory disclosure filed Wednesday.
With California’s Proposition 40 calling for a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ wealth, Zuckerberg feared he could lose voting power at Meta, a company he exercises near-total control over. Over the summer, he informed Meta’s board that he could put his $110 million Palo Alto compound up for sale, publicly signaling his plan to leave the state where the company is headquartered. Then, early last month, he threatened to “begin taking steps by mid-September in order to establish residency outside California.”
But the two sides ultimately agreed to a compromise that would ensure Zuckerberg remains in California, even if voters pass Proposition 40. Meta’s board has agreed to let him sell “up to one-half of his economic stake in the Company through the sale of his new shares of Class C common stock without reducing his voting control.”
The company also plans to use the sale of the new class of stock to help fund Zuckerberg’s massive investment in AI infrastructure and product development.
This Week in Zuck:
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Last weekend, Meta suspended the No Kings Coalition’s Instagram account just as the group was leading nationwide protests against President Trump and tech oligarchs who have supported him. Meta communications chief Andy Stone has since blamed an automated security tool that “detected the use of a Claude tool” tied to the account. “An automated re-review of the removal action an hour later recognized that shouldn’t have happened and restored the account,” said Stone, adding, “We want to reiterate our sincere apology for the error.” (Popular Information)
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On Wednesday, a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for data privacy violations related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. (CNBC)
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While Meta has blamed low-level employees for pirating books to train its AI models, a judge in California has ordered the company to disclose the higher-ups responsible for the operation. The order came in a lawsuit authors filed over Meta’s unauthorized use of published works for AI training. (Ars Technica)
At David Ellison’s CBS News, editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has asked journalists to find links between Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Semafor’s Max Tani:
In 2012, Abdul El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, described “an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early ’70s.” Republicans and members of the media have since pressed El-Sayed, an American of Egyptian descent, to answer whether he has ties to the Islamist movement, which was founded in Egypt and whose offshoots include US-designated terrorist groups.
The subject is of particular interest at CBS News, where Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss has repeatedly encouraged the network’s journalists to dedicate serious resources to finding a potential link.
In recent weeks, Weiss has personally advocated for CBS News journalists to pursue numerous story angles related to El-Sayed’s supposed sympathy towards the Muslim Brotherhood, and was directly involved in a controversial story about his previous posts comparing the COVID-19 death toll to 9/11. She has discussed the topic on editorial calls, and tasked CBS News’ investigative unit with combing through El-Sayed’s background for a potential link to the organization.
El-Sayed is running for Senate in Michigan, a critical race that could decide which party controls the chamber after the midterms.
Meanwhile, Status, an outlet covering the news industry, recently reported that Weiss interfered with a 60 Minutes story on the daily reality of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. During the segment, correspondent Lesley Stahl followed Palestinian families as an Israeli settler mob blocked them from reaching their land. The report ultimately aired, but it’s unclear how much of it was changed or cut. Status reported that Weiss had a “very, very hands-on” involvement in the editing process, leading Stahl to consider leaving the network. CBS News denied the report.
Weiss, who briefly lived in Israel, has a long history of activism. As a student at Columbia University, she launched her public profile in 2004 by co-leading a campaign targeting three faculty members of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian descent.
Ellison’s choice of Weiss to lead CBS News was a natural fit. His father, American centibillionaire Larry Ellison — whose largesse allowed his son to acquire the network’s parent company — has given millions of dollars to a nonprofit aligned with the Israeli military.
At CBS News, one of Weiss’ new deputies, foreign editor Shayndi Raice, recently objected to a report noting the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s genocidal campaign in October 2023, according to audio obtained by Status. Raice belittled the Palestinian death toll, calling it a “magic number” while insisting that reporting it constituted a form of “posturing.”
In other Skydance news, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour announced this week that she plans to leave the network next year after more than four decades. It’s unclear whether Amanpour’s decision is connected to Ellison’s control of CNN. The 68-year-old correspondent has been reducing her workload for some time. CNN contributor Kara Swisher said last month that she plans to quit rather than work for Ellison.
Peter Thiel says he objects to Trump’s war on Iran and suggests the administration fears “ICC arrest warrants.” A right-wing billionaire who was among Trump’s earliest Silicon Valley backers, Thiel said he is “skeptical of” the war during one of his recent antichrist lectures in Nashville, Tennessee. “I think we should not have done it,” he said, per Politico, which obtained a recording of the event. “There were a lot of mistakes that were made.” After saying the US may lack the necessary “hard power,” Thiel added, “Maybe we’re going to lose the soft power war.” During another Nashville lecture, he questioned whether the International Criminal Court has spooked the members of the Trump administration leading the war effort. “I have come to suspect that the threat of an ICC arrest warrant is the sword of Damocles hanging over the Trump administration as it tries to persecute this war in Iran,” he said. (Politico)
Tech billionaires have raised at least $340 million in an effort to torpedo California’s billionaire tax proposal. With a vast war chest, opponents of the tax proposal have spent more than $1 million a day on ads and organizing. The opposition effort, led by Google cofounder and new Trump ally Sergey Brin, could be working. One recent poll suggests the tax proposal, which California voters will decide on the November ballot, lacks majority support. (The Guardian)
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg donates $80 million to help elect Democrats in the midterms. The former three-time mayor of New York is focusing his spending on tilting House elections in favor of Democratic candidates. “The difference between 221 and 230 [seats], in terms of the House majority, really matters,” said Howard Wolfson, a political adviser to Bloomberg. A billionaire whose fortune is derived from his eponymous financial data company, Bloomberg is one of the few ultra-wealthy individuals giving heavily to Democrats this cycle. Among the party’s other megadonors are investor George Soros, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman. (New York Times)
Trump says he asked Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai to rename one of the major oceans to “Trump Ocean” on Google Maps. “We seriously looked at the Atlantic Ocean,” Trump said at a Wednesday rally in South Carolina. “I called Google Maps — who were really great with the lake, really great — and I spoke to a brilliant guy, Sundar. He heads all of Google. He’s a brilliant guy. [Google cofounder Sergey Brin] and Sundar, totally brilliant guys.” The president continued: “And I said, Sundar, I’m thinking of the Atlantic Ocean. Can you handle it? ‘No, no, no, this time I’m not doing it,’ he said. ‘Oceans are different, sir. They cover really a lot of countries. Please don’t ask us to do that.’” Pichai and Alphabet previously acquiesced to Trump’s requests to have Google rename Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico to “Lake America” and the “Gulf of America.” (Newsweek)
Venezuelan billionaire received pardon after his family promised $50 million to Trump lawyer Alina Habba. After billionaire banker Julio Herrera Velutini pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation, his family hired Alina Habba, President Trump’s former personal lawyer, according to a New York Times investigation. Last year, while Habba held an advisory role at the Justice Department, the Herrera family agreed to pay her $50 million — ostensibly for employment at a dubious, newly formed company controlled by the family. Herrera received his desired presidential pardon soon after Habba got her deal. The episode exemplifies how the ultra-wealthy have won extraordinary favors from Trump. (New York Times)
