Elon Musk ordered a “slowdown” to Starlink in Ukraine that set off a “panic” in the country and “confusion inside” the Trump administration.
The Wall Street Journal dropped a report on Tuesday diving into a disruption in Ukraine’s Starlink-internet service as they continue fighting a war with Russia.
According to U.S. officials and three people familiar with the situation, “Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine, a decision that sparked panic in Kyiv and confusion inside the Trump administration.”
My feeling is that Putin had people tell Trump that Putin would be grateful (sell cheap diesel that Russia got from Iran, pump up the right-wing botfarms, arrange a shiny gold medal) if Trump got Starlink restricted, now that Ukraine was hitting Russia’s dual-use infrastructure so hard. And Trump mentioned it to Musk, and Musk took Starlink down for Ukraine.
So when questions started getting asked, Musk said he didn’t order it (because Trump made that call), and Trump said he didn’t order it (because he works like a Mafia boss, “be a shame if something happened …”), and since everything was back-channeled, no one else knows what was going on.
I suppose the success rate must be phenomenal of that russian botnet to warrant the actions they are taking just before midterms. Its either that or they are desperate.