Elon Musk ordered a slowdown of Starlink in Ukraine — report

Tech billionaire Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of SpaceX's Starlink satellite service that Ukraine relies on, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing US officials.

Kyiv uses Starlink for battlefield communications and drone operations. Restricting the service means restricting the country's attack and defense missions against Russia.

Two people told the Journal that Musk and US President Donald Trump discussed the Starlink decision in a call, soon after the slowdown became public. One of them claimed that the two had discussed throttling Starlink prior to the decision as well.

Both Musk and Trump have expressed anger at Ukraine for attacking Russian diesel refineries in recent weeks, which the president blames for high energy prices. 

The report also comes after Trump's comments last week that he did not think either he or Musk was responsible for Ukraine losing Starlink access.

Musk had said that any limits on speed or use were decided by the US military or the president.

Musk, SpaceX, and the White House are yet to respond to the report. 

Ukraine presses allies on intelligence sharing

More to come...

Edited by: Roshni Majumdar

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