The Trump administration’s insistence that it has no say over Elon Musk’s satellite network just ran headlong into a damning new account.
Reuters reported Friday that the Biden and Trump administrations both asked SpaceX several times over the years to switch its Starlink service on or off in various countries, long before this month’s slowdown of Ukraine’s military access. Six former senior U.S. officials described the requests to the outlet, which said they had never been reported before.
The report lands two days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted the decision over Ukraine’s access belonged to Musk and SpaceX rather than the White House.
“We cannot direct a private company as to the decisions they make or not make,” Rubio said Wednesday, according to Forbes.
According to the former officials, Biden aides repeatedly handed SpaceX intelligence showing that the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon were using Starlink terminals that reached them through middlemen, then asked the company to find and disable them. At least some were shut down, two of the officials said. The Biden team also pressed SpaceX to widen Starlink use for Ukraine’s military after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Trump’s own administration made similar overtures. A former senior Trump official and a second source told Reuters the administration discussed with Musk getting Starlink terminals into Iran and switched on after U.S.-Israeli strikes in June 2025 and again in February 2026.
The revelations raise fresh questions about who throttled Ukraine’s service. Reuters previously reported the order to throttle Starshield, the military version of Starlink, came from inside the White House, while The Wall Street Journal reported Musk made the call and Trump later phoned him to lift it.
Musk himself pointed back at Washington earlier this week.
“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately (by the president of the United States),” Musk wrote.
Trump said Friday he had not spoken with Musk about the issue, adding, “if there is a problem, I’ll get it straightened out.”
Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) warned about Washington’s dependence on SpaceX.
“Unelected billionaires and private corporations should not decide what is in the best interest of America’s national security,” Crow said.
Satellite industry consultant Armand Musey told Reuters that Musk is “supposed to be a business executive, with government contracts, and he’s essentially making huge foreign policy decisions.”
Ukraine’s embassy in Washington said its priority is getting the service back to normal speed “as soon as possible, as the lives of our people depend on it.”
SpaceX did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
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