Ukraine's Starlink Throttle Eased After Trump Reportedly Called Musk, and Trump Says Who Called Doesn't Matter

The satellite links Ukraine's drone war runs on started behaving again on Thursday, and the reason appears to be a phone call between two of the most powerful men in America. President Donald Trump asked Elon Musk to ease the restrictions Musk had placed on Starshield, the military grade version of SpaceX's Starlink, US officials told The Wall Street Journal.

US and Ukrainian officials said the system was "working more normally Thursday, shortly after" the two men spoke by phone. More normally is not the same as fully restored. But the timing tells its own story about who holds the switch.

A call nobody will confirm

Trump will not say whether he picked up the phone. Asked about it outside the White House as he left for a campaign rally in Iowa, he said he did not "want to comment one way or the other."

"Whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn't make any difference," he told reporters. "The bottom line, he put it back."

The day before, he had gone further. "I don't know who did it, but I was not involved," Trump said Wednesday. He has repeatedly denied any role in the slowdown and said he does not know whether Musk was behind it.

The Journal reported on Tuesday that Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO and an open critic of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had ordered the throttling himself. Two unnamed sources in that report said Trump and Musk discussed it "soon after" the change became public last week. One said Musk spoke to Trump before imposing the speed cap.

What the throttle broke

The damage was real and fast. Overnight on October 14, SpaceX imposed unannounced speed limits on Ukraine's Starshield terminals, and Ukrainian drone crews watched missions fail as terminals dropped their connection above set speeds. Ukraine's Defense Ministry later said a 161 km/h cap remained in place, too slow for interceptor drones.

The episode landed at a politically charged moment. Trump has been ramping up criticism of Zelenskyy for continuing to strike Russian energy infrastructure, while pursuing a deal to ease sanctions on Russia so it can supply some diesel to the global market.

Both parties want answers

The concern crosses the aisle. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told CNBC on Wednesday that he does not believe Musk would throttle Starlink without "at least the acquiescence of the White House."

On Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who is ranking member of the Senate homeland security committee's investigations subcommittee, opened an inquiry into how SpaceX's satellite technology was "degraded for Ukraine without notice." He sent letters to Musk and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

"This decision to limit critical technology for a key ally not only put Ukrainian forces at risk and their people in peril, but raises serious questions about who controls critical capabilities the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars to procure," Blumenthal wrote.

That is the question hanging over the whole affair. A frontline capability paid for with billions in public money was apparently dialed down by a private CEO and dialed back up after a call from a president who says he was never involved. The White House and an email address associated with Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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