Report says Musk, not Trump, ordered Starlink throttling that blindsided Ukraine

Musk and Trump both denied ordering Starlink slowdown. WSJ reports it was Musk.

A Wall Street Journal report revealed that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, not President Donald Trump, ordered the throttling of Starlink that caught Ukraine's air assault forces off guard last week. Despite Musk's assertion that all decisions on the military version of Starlink are handled by the US military and Trump, the Journal noted that Musk made the final call.

The decision followed Musk and Trump criticizing Ukraine for targeting Russian diesel refineries. The throttling, which cap the speeds at which Ukrainian Starlink hardware could connect to the satellite-based network, left some offensive and interceptor drones virtually useless, causing panic in Kyiv and confusion within the Trump administration.

The report, citing unnamed US officials and people familiar with the matter, provided no further details.

Written by urgent.news from Ars Technica Policy's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.

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