President Trump on Friday flatly denied that he or SpaceX founder Elon Musk was behind the Starlink outage that disrupted Ukrainian military communications earlier this week, as the president's public spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky intensified over renewed Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.
"I didn't do that. No, we didn't do that at all. In fact, I don't even think it was slowed down from what I understood. Because I just checked this morning," Trump told reporters en route to a campaign rally in Georgia. "I heard about it from the news, the media. And we didn't slow it down at all. And I think it's probably functioning, from what I understand."
When pressed on whether Musk was involved, Trump said, "I don't know if there's anybody because it wasn't me, and it wasn't Elon, as I understand." A White House official echoed that stance, telling NewsNation, The Hill's broadcast partner, that "no such request" was ever made by Trump.
Ukraine reported the outage on Wednesday, saying its military had lost access to the Starlink service it relies on for vital communications. According to a source familiar with the matter, the restriction specifically affected objects traveling faster than 100 mph, which hampered the effectiveness of Ukrainian drones, airplanes, and helicopters. At the time, some Ukrainian officials speculated that the decision to cut access may have originated in Washington.
Musk initially deferred to Trump, posting on X that "any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS." He added, "Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company."
The Starlink dispute has become a flashpoint in the already strained relationship between Trump and Zelensky, with Trump referring to the Ukrainian leader as "not a good guy for us to deal with." The tension comes as Zelensky has sought support from European allies amid the feud.
Several Republican senators expressed concern this week that the loss of Starlink access had "degraded Ukraine's ability to conduct defensive operations against Russian drone and missile attacks on civilian infrastructure." In a letter to the Pentagon's inspector general, the lawmakers wrote, "Given the potentially deadly consequences, these incidents require immediate investigation."
The outage and the ensuing political fallout come as Trump's relationship with Zelensky continues to deteriorate, with the president's recent comments and actions drawing scrutiny from both domestic and international observers. The White House has not provided further details on the cause of the outage, and SpaceX has not commented beyond Musk's statements.
