Elon Musk has ordered the limitation of services of the Starshield satellite network in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, after the multibillionaire nevertheless affirmed that any restriction of this system would, in the last resort, have been decided by Donald Trump.
Elon Musk has decided to cap the connection speed of Ukrainian equipment to this system deployed by his company SpaceX, making certain kyiv drones unusable, according to the daily, which cites anonymous American officials and people familiar with the matter.
The American Minister of Defense, Pete Hegseth, for his part assured Tuesday that the Pentagon had not ordered any changes concerning Starshield. “Nothing has changed from our point of view. We have not given any directives or anything like that,” he said.
US President Donald Trump also said on Friday that he had not requested any restrictions from Starshield. “It wasn’t me. And I don’t think it was Elon,” he said.
Last week, kyiv announced that its capacity to connect to the network, which it considers crucial to repelling the Russian invasion, was limited. The announcement came shortly after criticism from Donald Trump against Ukraine, which the Republican billionaire had called to stop targeting Russian oil refineries.
Musk had accused Washington
Elon Musk had suggested that the US government was responsible for this slowdown. “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the U.S. government. Any limitation of flow or use is decided by the American military and ultimately by the American president,” the richest man in the world wrote on X.
Ukraine uses Starshield, Starlink’s satellite service intended in particular for military use, for its battlefield communications, its medium-range strikes against territories occupied by Russia and its interceptor drones. It also uses the civilian Starlink satellite system, also operated by SpaceX.
Relations between Washington and kyiv have become strained again in recent days. Donald Trump has called for the replacement of Volodymyr Zelensky after the Ukrainian leader sharply criticized the surprise US-Russia diesel deal.
“No prior knowledge,” says Rubio
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the United States had no advance knowledge of the slowdown in SpaceX satellite communications used by Ukraine for its battlefield operations against Russia.
“The president (of the United States) has nothing to do with the decisions made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr. (Elon) Musk,” said Mr. Rubio, who spoke in Bombay, India’s economic capital. “It’s a private company; the president does not direct this company and cannot order it anything (…). I tell you, there was no prior knowledge” on this subject, he added.
