Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk ordered the Starshield throttling in Ukraine. As I pointed out here, that story was a bit of a mixed bag. It claimed, in the headline and opening paragraph, that Musk had ordered the slowdown himself. But it also noted that one source said Musk and Trump had discussed it prior to it happening.
Musk and Trump discussed the Starlink decision in a call soon after the slowdown became public, while the president was campaigning last week, two of the people said. One of the people also claimed Musk and Trump discussed the matter prior to the decision to throttle Starlink.
So they had two sources and two different stories of what happened. And that disagreement over whether they talked before or after continues later in the story.
Some U.S. officials say that Musk acted unilaterally and that Trump didn’t specifically order any retribution against Ukraine. But a person familiar with the situation said Musk talked to multiple senior administration officials, including with Trump, before imposing the new speed cap, which Ukrainian officials said had allowed Russian missiles to evade their defenses.
So there are two ways to read this. Either Musk did this on his own and talked to Trump after the fact or Trump and Musk talked about it before it happened. Take your pick.
Today the WSJ has a follow up story saying that President Trump asked Musk to undo the speed throttling which has been in place for more than a week.
President Trump called Elon Musk on Wednesday and asked him to lift restrictions on a military-grade version of Starlink in Ukraine that the SpaceX chief had throttled, U.S. officials said.
The system was working more normally Thursday, shortly after their conversation, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said. Some Ukrainian officials said the system wasn’t restored to full functionality but was working at higher speeds than under the cap.
Trump told Musk he was frustrated the system’s speeds remained capped at around 100 miles an hour, officials said. The speed limit rendered some of Ukraine’s offensive drones and interceptors powerless against Russian attacks. Their conversation followed a Wall Street Journal report revealing that Musk ordered the slowdown, though SpaceX and the White House have differing accounts about whether the world’s richest man acted alone or at the administration’s behest.
I'm highlighting that last sentence because the WSJ is summarizing their previous story by saying, "SpaceX and the White House have differing accounts." Well, okay, but also the WSJ had differing accounts. As I just showed above, they had two sources saying different things in one story and never explained why they were siding with the one source over the account of the other. The headline said Musk did it but the story itself said it was Musk or maybe Trump.
Let's say that you believe the White House account: Musk called Trump after the slowdown to discuss it. Okay, well that means Trump knew about it last week. So why did Trump wait until this Wednesday to call Musk to ask him to reverse this slowdown?
The WSJ is framing this as if their story is what prompted Trump's call to Musk about the slowdown, but that doesn't make any sense. Trump knew last week that Musk ordered the slowdown. He didn't need the WSJ report to tell him that because Musk himself told him that a week earlier. So why is the White House still claiming Trump didn't know who'd done it?
The White House referred the Journal to Trump’s recent denials that he had asked Musk to throttle Starlink’s speeds or knew who issued the order. Trump and Musk spoke about Ukraine and Starlink on the day the slowdown became public, the Journal previously reported.
Again, that's not what the Wall Street Journal reported. Here it is again from their Tuesday story: "Musk and Trump discussed the Starlink decision in a call soon after the slowdown became public..." What does discussing the Starlink decision mean in this context if not the decision to throttle Starshield speeds that the whole article is about?
I'm trying to suggest that this story (and the one earlier this week) don't make a lot of sense. Either Trump ordered the slowdown himself or he learned about it right after it happened. Those are the two options that the WSJ's own reporting supports. Either way, Trump wasn't waiting on the press to sort it out for him. He knew right away what had happened and who had done it.
Maybe there's more to this but at this point I don't feel like I trust the WSJ to get the complete story.