Washington has repeatedly turned to Elon Musk's SpaceX to determine where satellite internet should remain available during conflicts, seeking to deny communications to armed groups in some countries while restoring access for military forces and civilians in others.
The requests span the Biden and Trump administrations and concern Ukraine, Iran, Yemen and Lebanon. Six former senior American officials told Reuters that Washington had asked SpaceX on multiple occasions to activate or restrict Starlink coverage in support of American security and foreign-policy objectives. The previously undisclosed requests reveal the degree to which access to a privately operated satellite network has become a matter of government decision-making.
‼️‼️ Now this is something! 🔽 This technical thread suggests (explains) that the entire Starlink/shield slowdown issue is not a consequence of a political decision in the US or by Musk but the result of Ukrainian engineers hacking the system to bypass it's controls and do something they are not permitted to do - and when Starlink took steps to prevent the bypassing and ensure the controls remained effective, suddenly the system stopped working in 'bypass mode' - and Zelensky then set out to politicise matters. The explanation makes the bits of the puzzle fit together and fits with the New York Times article in which Ukrainians explained that although the system is formally limited to 100 mph they have managed to exceed it. ~~~~ "What was really going on with the Starlink scandal in Ukraine? An analysis of the technical modifications, hacker boards, Elon Musk’s restrictions, and why drones started falling at the end of 2026 and Zelensky staged a pre-election Trump scandal. Big thread 👇 1/15 Let’s start with the tariffs. Inside the country, only civilian Starlink has always worked: the basic tariff ($100), commercial in-motion ($400), and priority headquarters ($2–4k). Aviation tariffs cost up to $1K–20K–100K+, but they are unavailable in the country. 2/15 Because of the high load, the network was overloaded. SpaceX had to keep prices high for the military in order to build an excess of ground stations around Ukraine for minimal signal latency. By the way, these sites with antenna domes recently began to be burned on orders from the darknet. 3/15 The main problem at the front is electronic warfare (EW). Because of GPS jamming, civilian Starlink chips froze, and with false location the terminal was blocked. The solution was a GPS hack board. Engineers soldered it inside to manually set the required coordinates. 4/15 The hack boards also allowed bypassing Musk’s geographic zones. For a long time Starlink did not work in the gray zone under Russian control. But if you entered the coordinates of a neighboring region of Ukraine, the connection came back to life. The Russians used this too, until Kyiv received exclusive whitelists. 5/15 By 2025 Musk began tightening the screws and lowering speed limits for commercial tariffs. But military engineers discovered a loophole: technically the satellite-terminal communication session is not rigidly tied to GPS. The protection was only on the terminal module itself. 6/15 If the terminal thought via the hack board that it was static, it itself sent a radio request to the satellite and received the necessary data for the session. There are already about 10,000 satellites, and the signal was picked up even with a spread of 150+ km. The drone was flying, but the Starlink server considered it stationary. 7/15 This was a shared secret. Before being sent to the front, the cases of new Starlinks were massively opened in order to solder in the GPS hack and install durable moisture-proof connectors. This way the ordinary tariff allowed drones to fly at high speeds. 8/15 At the beginning of 2026 Musk lowered the speed of the commercial tariff to 160 km/h across the entire planet. This is below the speed of many simple UAVs with a tailwind. But because of the mass use of hack boards in Ukraine, no one noticed this. The terminals reported that they were supposedly standing still. 9/15 At the END of 2026 SpaceX responded harshly. A server-side check was introduced: if according to GPS the terminal is stationary, but at the same time it switches from satellite to satellite too quickly (which reveals a real speed above 160 km/h), the server instantly drops the session. 10/15 The GPS hack stopped working. Ukrainian military began having problems with long-range UAVs. Now flights must be strictly planned so as not to exceed the 160 km/h limit. There is not always money for aviation tariffs, and SpaceX does not sell them because of the attacking nature of the use. 11/15 Against this background Zelensky is trying to get access to StarShield (the US military Starlink) without restrictions in order to fly over the Russian Federation. But Trump, Musk, and the Pentagon refuse him. The Ukrainians presented the restrictions as a political blockade, remaining silent about the fact that the Starlink speed limit has already been in place for a year. 12/15 Now there is behind-the-scenes ping-pong: Musk says that he changed nothing these days, Rubio states that StarShield is unavailable to Ukraine. The bottom line: Starlink is gradually being squeezed into the framework of cars and stationary use. Bypassing the system no longer works. 13/15 Whether the speed check was turned off or access was given to special aviation tariffs is still unclear. The failure affected a narrow segment of drones. However, satellite communication on super-high-speed drones was already a compromise because of the signal delays of 1000 km to orbit and back. 14/15 Russian UAV specialists are in no hurry to rejoice. The simplicity of using Starlink slowed down the development of other technologies in Ukraine. Now Kyiv can, on an emergency priority basis, refine more complex autonomous mesh-AI systems that will fly deep into the Russian Federation. End of thread. 15/15 Written based on materials from last year’s newspapers, most likely not true and total nonsense. No one and nothing is right on the internet. Author — a boring schoolboy from Georgia."
— Chamberlain's Ghost (@RSA_Observer) October 23, 2026
Under President Joe Biden, officials sought restrictions intended to prevent Iran-backed Houthi and Hezbollah militants from using Starlink in Yemen and Lebanon. Other requests aimed to expand connectivity for Ukraine following Russia's February 2022 invasion and provide internet access inside Iran during periods of government-imposed restrictions. The Trump administration subsequently sought Starlink access for Iran following American and Israeli military strikes in 2025 and 2026, according to the former officials.
The accounts establish that requests were made, but do not independently establish that SpaceX implemented every proposed change. Nor do they disclose which terminals were disabled, how long restrictions lasted or whether any particular militant organisation lost access.
Starlink is capable of imposing geographic and contractual restrictions on its services. The company's published acceptable-use policy prohibits unauthorised military activity and remote operation of drones unless SpaceX has specifically permitted those uses. Such restrictions, however, are separate from decisions taken under government defence contracts.
Ukraine illustrates how difficult that division of responsibility has become. A 2025 investigation by the US Agency for International Development's inspector general established that USAID and SpaceX had supplied 5,175 Starlink terminals to Ukrainian authorities. The investigation also found that the agency had failed to adequately monitor their subsequent distribution, leaving equipment vulnerable to misuse or capture in Russian-occupied territory.
The problem has since extended to Starshield, SpaceX's military-oriented satellite communications service. Unlike commercial Starlink, Starshield is specifically designed for government security applications, including encrypted communications and intelligence-related capabilities.
On October 14, Ukrainian officials reported restrictions affecting military satellite connectivity, particularly equipment moving at higher speeds. The disruption interfered with drone operations and prompted questions about whether the restrictions originated with SpaceX or the American government.
In an October 19 letter to SpaceX, four Democratic senators demanded records identifying who authorised the limitations, how they were implemented and whether Ukraine received advance warning. Senator Richard Blumenthal opened a further congressional inquiry on October 22 into the government's dependence on SpaceX.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has denied that the Trump administration directed the latest restrictions. Musk, meanwhile, has maintained that Starshield usage limitations are determined by American military authorities and ultimately the president. Those competing accounts have not resolved who ordered the October disruption.
The latest disclosures expose a problem extending beyond Ukraine: American officials have relied on SpaceX to implement sensitive communications decisions abroad, yet the precise boundary between government authority and corporate control remains largely undisclosed.
