This story just keeps taking new twists and turns. As I pointed out yesterday, the Wall Street Journal had a story claiming that Trump had asked Musk to restore full capability to Starshield in Ukraine and that Musk had done so.
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 expressed a lot of confusion over this story for several reasons. For one, Starshield is a group of satellites which are controlled entirely by the Pentagon, at least as far as setting policy goes. Starlink may actually maintain and control the satellites but they aren't in control of them in the same way. So it's odd that Musk could have ordered the throttling of their service on his own in the first place.
The other problem is the claim that Trump just asked Musk to fix this as if he only learned Musk was behind it on Wednesday of this week after the WSJ published a story making that claim (sort of). The WSJ's own reporting says that Musk called Trump last week, either right before or right after the throttling happened.
The WSJ is framing this as if their story [from this week saying Musk throttled Starshield] 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?
Today, the Washington Post has a story saying that throws another twist into this story. According to Ukraine, Starshield service hasn't returned to full function, contrary to the claims made yesterday. Also, Trump denies having spoken to Musk about it.
President Donald Trump said Elon Musk has lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s access to Starshield, the military equivalent of Starlink — a claim Ukraine refuted Friday — amid confusion over who previously ordered access to the network be curtailed.
Asked Friday whether he had spoken to Musk about the satellite system — operated by Musk’s SpaceX — Trump said: “I have not spoken to him. I might ... have to, but I have not. I’ve heard ... it was fixed, but if it’s not, I’ll fix it.”...
Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in the U.S., Denys Sienik, said “speed restrictions remain in place” on Friday. “Unfortunately, as of today, nothing has changed. We continue to wait,” he wrote on X.
So the WSJ reported yesterday that Trump and Musk spoke Wednesday of this week and Musk restored Starshield access. Now it appears that's not true and Trump is denying having spoken to Musk about it at all. So either the WSJ botched this story or Trump is not telling the truth about what happened.
I'm not the only person thinking none of this makes any sense. Here's David Shor's take on what is really happening.
Here’s my theory on what’s really happening with the Starlink/Starshield throttling dispute. Musk and Vance have both stated that throttling would not occur without government direction. We also know that discussions took place immediately before the throttling began. Yet neither Musk nor the White House appears willing to accept responsibility. Yesterday, Trump announced that the issue had been resolved. Initial reports from Ukraine seemed to confirm that something had changed. But later reports, continuing overnight and into this morning, suggested the throttling remained in place. So what happened? One possibility is that Musk briefly reversed the throttling, then reconsidered the legal implications. Perhaps after consulting his attorneys, he realized that unilaterally reversing the decision could leave him exposed to future investigations over who authorized it in the first place. My suspicion is that Musk wants whoever originally directed the throttling to acknowledge that decision, preferably in writing, before he permanently reverses it. The White House may be unwilling to acknowledge issuing such an order, while Musk may be equally unwilling to accept responsibility for implementing it. This may no longer be about whether to unthrottle Starlink. It may be about who takes responsibility for the original decision—and who gets left holding the bag when the investigations begin.
— David Shor (@DYShor) October 23, 2026
Here’s my theory on what’s really happening with the Starlink/Starshield throttling dispute.
Musk and Vance have both stated that throttling would not occur without government direction. We also know that discussions took place immediately before the throttling began.
Yet neither Musk nor the White House appears willing to accept responsibility.
Yesterday, Trump announced that the issue had been resolved. Initial reports from Ukraine seemed to confirm that something had changed. But later reports, continuing overnight and into this morning, suggested the throttling remained in place.
So what happened?
One possibility is that Musk briefly reversed the throttling, then reconsidered the legal implications. Perhaps after consulting his attorneys, he realized that unilaterally reversing the decision could leave him exposed to future investigations over who authorized it in the first place.
My suspicion is that Musk wants whoever originally directed the throttling to acknowledge that decision, preferably in writing, before he permanently reverses it.
The White House may be unwilling to acknowledge issuing such an order, while Musk may be equally unwilling to accept responsibility for implementing it.
This may no longer be about whether to unthrottle Starlink. It may be about who takes responsibility for the original decision—and who gets left holding the bag when the investigations begin.
This makes more sense than anything I've heard from the Wall Street Journal so far. I would just add that it's not believable that Musk ordered the code red on his own and that Trump knew nothing about it for days because the same night that Starshield service cut out, the Pentagon also failed to notify Ukraine about an incoming Russian attack.
Musk may have some added control of Starshield because he maintains the satellites, but he's probably not cutting off Pentagon warnings without Trump's knowledge. It's much more believable to me that Musk suggested the idea of throttling the Starshield access and Trump approved it and added his own limit on intel sharing.
Musk quickly denied having made this decision and now sources are telling two different stories, one in which Musk discussed it with Trump and he approved it and one in which Musk did it himself and told Trump later the same day. Either way, Trump is in charge of Starshield and has known for a while exactly what happened.
It feels like what we're seeing is Musk pushing Trump to own this and Trump doing his best to blame it on Musk.
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