US President Donald Trump speaks to the media prior to departure on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, Oct. 21, 2026.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Wednesday insisted that he had nothing to do with a slowdown of SpaceX‘s Starlink in Ukraine, and does not know if Elon Musk was responsible for speed-capping the critical satellite service.
Trump’s latest denial came one day after The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter, reported that Musk ordered the slowdown and discussed it with Trump.
“I wasn’t involved,” Trump told a reporter when asked about the decision as he departed the White House for a campaign rally in South Carolina.
When pressed to answer if Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, ordered the slowdown, Trump said, “I don’t know who did it, but I was not involved.”
The recent disruption of Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink, rendered some Ukrainian drones effectively useless, weakening defenses against Russian attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday said his military still faces “speed restrictions on Starlink and Starshield services in different parts of the front.”
“No explanation for either of these issues has been provided to Ukraine by the American side,” he said.
Trump and Musk have both criticized Zelenskyy recently. But neither of them have yet identified who is behind the Starlink disruption.
Musk said on X last week that Starshield systems are “owned and controlled by the US government” and that any speed or usage limits are “decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”
Earlier Wednesday, Zelesnkyy said he and Norwegian Defense Minister Tore Sandvik “discussed in detail launching work on new satellite communication capabilities for our warriors.”
“We will involve partners who have the capacity to provide support,” Zelenskyy said in an X post.
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