Musk's Starlink explanation challenged by Texas GOP lawmaker

Tony Czuczka, Bloomberg News on Oct 25, 2026

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A Republican lawmaker questioned Elon Musk’s argument for throttling Ukraine’s access to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite terminals, arguing that Ukrainian forces use the system defensively in the war with Russia.

Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said Musk’s explanation in a social post — that Ukraine’s military violated Starlink’s terms of service by using it for “offensive drone strikes to kill people” — is one of the “contradictions” in Musk’s reasoning.

“What do you think defending your country is? Of course these drones have been used to kill people,” Crenshaw, whose congressional term ends in January, said Sunday on Bloomberg This Weekend. “They’ve been used to kill Russians for years, but inside Ukraine.”

A spat involving Ukraine, Musk and President Donald Trump erupted this month after speeds on Starlink and Starshield, the system’s military-grade version, were throttled without immediate clarity about who was responsible — something Musk partly addressed in his post.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that operating speeds were restored to normal. Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive officer, later said his company closed a “loophole” last week that allowed offensive drone strikes by Ukraine. In contrast, Starshield is controlled by the U.S. government, he added.

Emphasizing his point, Musk on Sunday cited a social post by Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which the Ukrainian president said his country’s use of Starlink includes “mid-range strikes against enemy military targets” in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

Musk’s leverage over Ukraine through his control of SpaceX has spurred bipartisan criticism from Kyiv’s supporters in Washington.

“Are you telling me that we don’t know something as important as a tool that’s being used by our Western nations is subject to the whims of one CEO?” Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina who isn’t seeking reelection, said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “Shame on whoever is responsible for it ever having a lapse.”

Crenshaw said his concern is less about Musk than the lack of alternatives to SpaceX’s technology.

“What I worry about is an entire conflict, an entire defense of a sovereign country like Ukraine being dependent on one company,” Crenshaw said. “That doesn’t that doesn’t make Elon Musk at fault for having ‘too much power.’ That that’s not the issue. The issue is that it’s the only thing available.”

Relations between Ukraine and the U.S. reached a low after Trump cut a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin this month under which Washington would refrain from further tightening sanctions on Russia in exchange for Moscow supplying limited volumes of diesel to the global market to curb rising prices.

Zelenskyy accused Trump in a Bloomberg interview last weekend of trying to pressure Kyiv into surrendering to Moscow.

Trump said he didn’t order limits of speed for Starlink operation, but criticized Zelenskyy, saying the Ukrainian is more difficult to deal with than Putin. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Trump had spoken to Musk, asking that he end restrictions on Starlink operations in Ukraine.

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(With assistance from Denitsa Tsekova.)

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