Elon Musk was behind the speed restrictions placed on the military-grade version of Starlink used by Ukrainian forces, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday night, citing US officials and people familiar with the matter.
SpaceX first placed a limit on some services in Ukraine on October 13 without warning. Ukrainian officials at the time feared the move by Musk’s company may have been made at the request of US President Donald Trump.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine was unable to use its interceptors against Russian drone attacks as a result of the restrictions on Saturday, saying that Ukraine had been told that they had been caused by technical issues.
Musk claims POTUS behind any decisions on speed limits as Trump denies responsibility
Trump said on Friday that he did not think he or Musk was responsible for Ukraine losing Starlink access in a way that affected its military operations against Russia and told reporters on Monday that he didn’t know who was responsible but “would like to find out.”
Musk posted that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” to his X/Twitter account shortly after the slowdown was publicized.
According to the WSJ report, some US officials said that Musk acted without any order from Trump. However, a person familiar with the situation told WSJ that Musk had communicated with multiple senior administration officials, including Trump himself, before imposing the new speed cap.
This comes amidst strained US-Ukrainian ties, with Trump accusing Zelensky of sabotaging peace efforts and Zelensky accusing the Trump administration of withholding intelligence, which the White House has denied.
“There has not been some deliberate political directive to go out and harm Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told journalists on Tuesday.
Rubio added that he had had a 45-minute conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday. Zelensky said the topics included ballistic missile interceptors, early warning of Russian attacks and the situation with Starlink and Starshield satellite services.
Trump criticizes Zelensky’s attack on Russian diesel
Trump has criticized Zelensky for attacking Russian diesel refineries, saying on October 10, days before the Starlink restrictions, that he told Zelensky, “You can do whatever you want to Russia, but don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem.’ And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel. He better damn well stop.”
Trump reiterated his criticism in a Truth Social post on Sunday, saying that Zelensky “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” calling on the Ukrainian leader to stop attacking Russian diesel facilities.
Musk has publicly agreed with Trump’s criticism, responding to a video of Trump telling Zelensky to stop the attacks with “Zelensky has gone too far,” on X, four days before drone operators reported losing unrestricted access to Starlink.
Ukraine is still “waiting for the official response from contacts with the Pentagon and SpaceX at the leaders’ level to understand what has happened, but also to understand whether the connection has been restored or will be restored,” Ukraine’s top diplomat in Washington, Denys Sienik, told the WSJ on Tuesday.
Amichai Stein and Reuters contributed to this report.
