The president was forced into it after his public story fell apart.
Megan Briggs/Megan Briggs/Getty Images
President Donald Trump secretly called billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk to beg for the removal of crippling speed restrictions on a military-grade SpaceX system used by Ukrainian defense forces, U.S. officials have revealed.
Trump reached out directly to the SpaceX founder on Wednesday, demanding he undo the slowdown on Starshield—a defense-focused variant of the Starlink network vital to Ukraine’s front-line war effort against Russia, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Trump complained to Musk that he was frustrated that system speeds remained capped at around 100 miles per hour, officials said. The artificial speed limit severely degraded Ukraine’s capability to launch offensive strike drones and deploy high-speed interceptors against incoming Russian bombardments.
Trump reached out directly to the SpaceX founder on Wednesday.
By Thursday, shortly after the conversation, Ukrainian and American officials confirmed the system was operating far more normally. While some Ukrainian officials noted the network had not been fully restored to its maximum functionality, military units reported higher speeds that allowed critical hardware to reconnect.
“I don’t comment one way or the other,” Trump claimed on Thursday when confronted about the phone call, before inadvertently taking credit for the sudden about-face: “The bottom line: He put it back.”
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Trump’s secret outreach exposes a chaotic web of conflicting excuses generated by the administration.
For an entire week, the 80-year-old president repeatedly insisted he had no idea who ordered the throttling or why it happened. “Well, I don’t know if it was anybody, because it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon,” Trump told reporters last Friday, brushing off reports that coverage was restricted on White House orders.
“From what I understand, it’s the same as it’s always been,” he added.
Top administration officials spent days publicly tripping over themselves, offering contradictory justifications.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly insisted Musk was acting completely independently to enforce corporate terms of service.
“There are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to, and that’s where Starlink has the option to make those decisions,” Hegseth claimed to reporters.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance offered an entirely different defense on Thursday, telling reporters “it’s completely understandable that he doesn’t want to get in the middle of a war without the U.S. government effectively directing him on what to do.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky needs the connection to stave off Russian attacks.
Vance insisted, “I don’t think this is about Elon. I think it’s fundamentally about what America’s policy in Ukraine and Russia is going to be.”
Musk himself publicly undercut the White House narrative on X, pointing out that the network used in Ukraine is “owned and controlled by the U.S. government” and stating plainly that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately POTUS.”
The Starshield sabotage coincided with a dramatic low ebb in U.S.-Ukraine relations.
The slowdown began shortly after Trump and Musk both lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for targeted drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.
Trump has been desperate to protect a shock deal he brokered to buy roughly 2 million tons of Russian diesel—a frantic effort to lower soaring domestic gas prices triggered by his deeply unpopular war in Iran.
Ukrainian military officials warned that the satellite interference directly cost civilian and military lives. As the network flickered back to life, Russia launched another massive overnight barrage against Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city.
The fallout is now spreading to Capitol Hill. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, launched a formal congressional investigation on Thursday into how Starshield was degraded without notice and the national security implications of the Pentagon relying on SpaceX for vital military hardware.
The White House has been contacted for comment.
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