During a fundamental action of Ukraine to resume Russia’s territory in late September 2022, Elon Musk gave an order that interrupted the counterfensive and shook Kiev’s confidence in Starlink, the satellite internet service that the billionaire provided at the beginning of the war to help Ukraine armed forces maintain connectivity on the battlefield.
According to three people familiar with the command, Musk told a senior office engineer in California of Spacex, the musk venture that controls Starlink, to cut coverage in areas such as Kherson, a strategic region north of the Black Sea that Ukraine was trying to recover.
“We have to do that,” said Michael Nicolls, Starlink’s engineer, to colleagues upon receiving the order, according to one of these people. Employees fulfilled the order, the three people told Reuters, disabling at least a hundred Starlink terminals, and their hexagon -shaped cells were dark on an inner map of the company’s coverage. The measure also affected other areas taken by Russia, including part of Donetsk province, more to the east.
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After Musk’s order, the Ukrainian troops suddenly faced a blackout in communications, according to a Ukrainian military officer, an armed advisor, and two others who witnessed Starlink’s failure near the front lines. The soldiers panicked, the drones that watched the Russian forces were dark, and the long -range artillery units, which depended on Starlink to point their shots, had difficulty reaching the targets.
As a result, the Ukrainian military officer and the military advisor said, the troops could not surround a Russian position in the city of Beryslav, east of Kherson, the administrative center of the region of the same name. “The siege was totally interrupted,” the military officer said in an interview. “Failing.”
Finally, the Ukraine counterofente was able to recover Berryslav, the city of Kherson and some additional territories that Russia had occupied. But Musk’s order, which had not been reported earlier, is the first known example of the billionaire actively turning off Starlink’s roof over a battlefield during conflict. The decision shocked some Starlink employees and effectively reformulated the front line of the fighting, allowing Musk to take “the result of a war in his own hands,” said another three people.
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The command of the command contradicts Musk’s narrative about how he dealt with Starlink’s service in Ukraine amid the war. In March, in an X post, his social media site, Musk wrote: “We would never do such a thing.”
Musk and engineer Nicolls did not respond to Reuters’ requests to comment.
A Spacex spokesman said by email that the news agency report is “inaccurate” and sent reporters to an X post this year, where the company said: “Starlink is fully committed to providing services to Ukraine”. The spokesman did not specify any inaccuracy in this report nor answered a long list of questions about the incident, Starlink’s role in the Ukraine war or other details about his business.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office and the country’s Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comments. Starlink still provides services to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces depend on it for some connectivity. Zelenskiy, later this year, publicly expressed his gratitude to Musk for Starlink.
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It is unclear what motivated the order of Musk, when exactly he gave it, or exactly how long the interruption lasted. The three people familiar with the Order said they believed that it originated from the concerns that Musk later expressed that Ukrainian advances could cause a nuclear retaliation from Russia. One of the people said the shutdown occurred on September 30, 2022. The other two said it was around that date, but did not remember the exact date. Some US high-ranked authorities shared Musk’s concerns that Russia would fulfill climbing threats, a former White House employee told Reuters.
Musk’s order was a first glimpse of power that the tycoon now exerts in geopolitics and global security because of Starlink, a fast -growing satellite internet service that barely existed at the beginning of this decade and now provides connectivity even in remote areas of the world. Even before Musk’s brief role as US President Donald Trump’s financier and counselor, Starlink’s success – and the incomparable connectivity she offers across the planet – gave Musk a growing influence with political leaders, governments and armed forces worldwide.
Musk’s influence on military affairs in Washington and other countries – through Starlink dominance in satellite communications and Spacex influence on space launches – has reached a dimension previously limited to sovereign governments, alarming some regulators and parliamentarians. “Elon Musk’s current global domain exemplifies the dangers of power concentrated in unregulated domains,” said Martha Lane Fox, a member of the British High Chamber, during a debate this year. The parliamentarian is a businesswoman and former member of the Twitter board, the social media site that Musk acquired in 2022 and renamed as X.
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“Your control,” said Lane Fox about Starlink, “depends exclusively on Musk, allowing his whim to dite access to vital infrastructure.”
Musk’s political influence and its big business with the US federal government are now being put to the test. Since leaving his role as Trump’s advisor, Musk has publicly fought with the president, has announced plans to create a new political party and criticized a spending bill that, he said, will increase the budget deficit and destroy jobs. Trump, in turn, threatened to end government contracts and subsidies for Musk companies, including new and profitable defense projects.
Whatever the reason for Musk’s decision, the shutdown in Kherson and other regions surprised some involved in the Ukraine war – from land troops to US military and foreign policy authorities, which, after the large -scale invasion of Russia, worked to ensure Starlink service to the Ukrainian forces. Five people familiar with the incident said that during the interruption, the Ukrainian authorities panicked and asked their Pentagon counterparts, but received few explanations about what could have caused the interruption.
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The US Department of Defense declined to comment. Reuters could not determine whether the White House or Pentagon authorities, after the stoppage, had some conversation with Musk about the interruption.
