Tesla, SpaceX, and X CEO Elon Musk attends a press conference held by U.S. President Donald Trump with AI executives after a conference on artificial intelligence outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 29, 2026.
Finn Gomez | Getty Images
Mr. Elon Musk is space xThe Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Ukraine relies on Starlink in its war with Russia, citing U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter.
SpaceX founder and CEO Musk last week “put limits on the speed at which Ukrainian hardware can remain connected to satellite-based networks,” the magazine reported. The decision effectively rendered some Ukrainian drones inoperable, the paper said.
Musk and President Donald Trump, who has recently criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, discussed moving to rein in Starlink “immediately” after the changes were first made public last week, two people familiar with the matter told the Journal.
One of the people who spoke to the news organization claimed that before imposing speed limits on Starlink, Musk discussed the issue with multiple Trump administration officials, including the president himself.
The White House and Musk-related emails did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the magazine’s report, which was released minutes after SpaceX reported its latest quarterly results.
The magazine’s article was not mentioned in a subsequent conference call between Musk and investors.
President Trump said on Monday that he did not know who ordered Starlink to be suspended, “but I would like to know.”
The newspaper reported that an unofficial White House investigation was launched after Zelensky publicly complained that the economic slowdown weakened Ukraine’s defenses against Russian attack.
Last Wednesday, Musk wrote in X that the StarShield system, the military version of Starlink, is “owned and controlled by the U.S. government” and that speed and usage limits are “determined by the U.S. military and ultimately the President.”
