Who kneecapped Ukraine’s SpaceX-built Starshield military satellite network? President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are both unconvincingly feigning innocence.
Earlier this week, Ukraine’s military lost access to Starshield services for objects moving faster than 100 miles per hour and reportedly sometimes slower, which cut it off from fast-moving drones and other aerial vehicles and hobbled much of its capability to intercept Russian fire. The outage conveniently overlapped with Trump’s insistence that Ukraine stop attacks on Russian oil refineries, which Trump blames for soaring oil prices (rather than, say, his disastrous war with Iran).
Musk denied making the decision and deflected to the White House—in a post to X on Wednesday, Musk argued the systems were “owned and controlled by the U.S. government” and “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately POTUS.” But wink wink, nudge nudge. The same day, Musk also wrote it was “time for [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] to go” and quote-tweeted “True” to another post accusing Ukraine of “throwing tantrums over not getting all your demands, including offensive use.”
White House officials reportedly initially professed ignorance to the Ukrainians and claimed the slowdown might be a glitch. While Reuters reported on Thursday that two U.S. officials and one Western official said the order did in fact come from the White House, a senior U.S. official told the news service: “No such request was ever made by the president.” That is not the same as saying the administration didn’t. On Friday, Trump publicly denied that he issued the order and covered Musk’s ass: “It wasn’t me and I don’t think it was Elon.”
The Telegraph reported the idea sprang from both billionaires: four sources told the paper that Musk had approached Trump with the idea of restricting Starshield, and one said the president agreed. Musk later panicked when the blackout led to a “night of carnage” in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, fearing European consumer backlash, and rushed to publicly pass the buck to the White House, according to the Telegraph.
This situation has grave implications beyond Musk’s or Trump’s individual credibility, as it’s further alienating allied leaders in Europe and casting doubt on any military technology that relies on U.S. infrastructure to operate. Either Trump and Musk have no idea who actually controls Starshield (a laughable claim) or they’re backstabbing an ally for leverage, which carries the clear implication that the U.S. will do so to anyone on a whim. The stench of suspicion could linger long past Trump’s tenure in office.
According to The Guardian, Zelenskyy said after a meeting of European Union leaders on Friday that speed limits on Ukraine’s Starshield use had been eased but not removed.
