Last week Elon Musk arbitrarily started throttling the LEO (low-Earth orbit) satellite connections of Ukraine’s military, preventing it from engaging in offensive and defensive operations. The decision blindsided the White House, caused significant financial and operational headaches for Ukraine, and created no shortage of bipartisan backlash.
After spending a week blaming one another, both the White House and Musk ultimately settled on the flimsy excuse that the throttling was because Ukraine had been violating Starlink’s terms of service.
Regular Starlink terminals have automatic network throttling implemented if a connected vehicle operates in excess of 70 km/hr. Starshield — the significantly more expensive military variant — is supposed to have no cap, but was throttled by Musk if drones or vehicles exceed speeds of 90 km/hr, preventing Ukraine from conducting both defensive and offensive operations.
Musk of course knows that Starlink and Starshield alike are used for military operations, terrorism, and criminal activity planet-wide. Smuggled Starlink terminals are routinely used for all manner of military, criminal, and black-market operations. Ukraine had been using both Starshield and cobbled together black market Starlink solutions for years without issue. Why the sudden issue?
As a right wing extremist in alliance with global authoritarians, it seems most likely that Musk interfered to drive Ukraine into Moscow’s arms for a negotiation in which they’ll be expected to surrender significant territorial gains (something Musk has long openly advocated for).
The move came as the Trump admin temporarily suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine and lifted Russia sanctions to allow for diesel imports from Moscow — something Trump hopes (falsely) will lower domestic gas prices and save him from an expected midterm bloodbath.
But it seems very likely Musk was also exploiting a crisis to upsell a country fighting for its life to a more expensive broadband plan (kind of like Verizon did to those California firefighters back in 2018).
Obviously Musk isn’t keen on openly admitting he’s a greedy, traitorous, and unstable national security threat, so he spent much of the last week defensively insisting he arbitrarily messed with Ukraine’s satellite connectivity because he’s so bravely anti-war. From a post to Musk’s personal right wing propaganda website, X:
“Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.
Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.
Starlink was also crucial to preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine in the early days of the war, as all other means of communication were destroyed or jammed by Russia.
SpaceX has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth BY FAR.
That said, I have nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict. May you burn in hell.
End of story.”
That non-threat is definitely a threat. Claiming the loophole is now “closed” also makes no sense, given that Ukraine says the limitations have been removed after significant bipartisan backlash, and there’s no indication that Ukraine actually changed anything. What actually changed things was global, bipartisan, political pressure against Musk and the Trump administration for their ratfucking of an American ally.
Recall that Musk, at one point, had already restricted Ukraine’s access to the service near Crimea because he personally opposed Ukraine’s military aims (defending itself from unprovoked invasion by authoritarians). It’s clear that Musk has a goal in mind, and it’s not Ukraine regaining full territorial control after being invaded by an authoritarian neighbor.
Musk isn’t anti-war as much as he is sympathetic to Putin (in perfect sync with his favorite politician) and keen on ensuring that if Starlink is used for war, the violent result is as profitable as possible.
Given the ugly nature of an unstable billionaire proving he’s a national security threat, I’d suspect we’ll see more investigations into this episode in the new year (especially if Republicans lose control of both the House and Senate). And countries worldwide are clearly accelerating their exploration and funding of numerous fledgling LEO Starlink alternatives to try and demuskify the planet.
