Trump denies ordering Starlink slowdown in Ukraine, says he doesn’t know who did
President Donald Trump on Wednesday insisted he had nothing to do with a slowdown of SpaceX‘s Starlink in Ukraine and said he does not know if Elon Musk was responsible for speed-capping the critical satellite service.
Trump’s latest denial came one day after The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter, reported Musk ordered the slowdown and discussed it with Trump.
“I wasn’t involved,” Trump told a reporter when asked about the decision as he departed the White House for a campaign rally in South Carolina.
When pressed to answer if Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, ordered the slowdown, Trump said, “I don’t know who did it, but I was not involved.”
The recent disruption of Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink, rendered some Ukrainian drones effectively useless, weakening defenses against Russian attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday said his military still faces “speed restrictions on Starlink and Starshield services in different parts of the front.”
“No explanation for either of these issues has been provided to Ukraine by the American side,” he said.
The Journal reported Tuesday that Musk and Trump discussed the move to throttle Starlink “soon after” the change first became public last week, citing two people familiar with the matter.
One of the people who spoke with the news outlet claimed Musk discussed the matter with multiple senior administration officials, including Trump himself, prior to imposing the Starlink speed cap.
Trump and Musk have both recently ramped up their criticism of Zelenskyy. But neither of them has yet identified who ordered the Starlink disruption.
Musk said on X last week that Starshield systems are “owned and controlled by the US government” and that any speed or usage limits are “decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”
Earlier Wednesday, Zelesnkyy said he and Norwegian Defense Minister Tore Sandvik “discussed in detail launching work on new satellite communication capabilities for our warriors.”
“We will involve partners who have the capacity to provide support,” Zelenskyy said in an X post.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday morning that he does not believe Musk would throttle Starlink without “at least the acquiescence of the White House.”
