Starlink Outages in Ukraine Draw Senate Scrutiny of Musk

US Senator Richard Blumenthal opened an investigation on October 22 into how Elon Musk, a private citizen holding no elected office, can decide to switch off Starlink service — a move that put at risk, in the senator's words, "the security of the US itself". The probe lands days before the US midterm elections and amid allegations that Musk's decisions over the Ukrainian theatre effectively aided Russia.

The immediate trigger was a restriction of Starlink and its military variant, Starshield, serving the Ukrainian armed forces. A bipartisan group of US senators and congress members has sent Musk a letter demanding an explanation for why the provision of those services was curtailed. Questions are also being raised about the threat to a democratically elected administration that chooses to cross him.

What did President Zelenskyy confirm?

By October 25, the service had recovered. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said all Starlink and Starshield speeds and operations had returned to normal. "The speeds are now where they need to be. The restoration began overnight, and by this morning, speeds were already sufficient," he said, adding that the restoration mattered "for our frontline logistics, for defending Ukraine against jet-powered 'shaheds'". He thanked members of Congress, senators, the media, the State Department and the President for treating the matter seriously.

How far does congressional anger reach?

The Starlink affair sits inside a broader wave of scrutiny. Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said on October 25: "There's got to be some guardrails and accountability" for companies such as SpaceX operating commercial- and military-grade technology used in the Russia-Ukraine war. "What I want to know, more importantly, is to what extent is the Department of Defense and the US government involved in this?" he added. "I get it's a private company, but they're playing into military space, geopolitical space."

One critic went further, arguing that every contract with companies owned or controlled by Musk that can be terminated should be, and that no new contracts should be signed, because US national security and defence cannot risk being compromised. Some voices in Washington have even suggested Musk's actions are treasonable, while others propose nationalising Starlink and Starshield.

The pressure extends beyond Ukraine. Democrats have mounted probes into the now-defunct DOGE operation, federal contracts and alleged conflicts of interest with Musk's firms. Musk, who has poured millions of dollars into congressional and senatorial races backing Republican candidates ahead of the midterms, has said he will retaliate against Democrats who investigate him.

DOGE itself collapsed in legal defeat. On October 20, Judge Denise Cote, a senior federal judge at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled that the Office of Personnel Management violated the US Privacy Act of 1974 — a post-Watergate statute restricting disclosure of personal records — and then disobeyed its own cybersecurity practices. DOGE had sought access to data on tens of millions of federal employees and retirees. It ceased operations on July 4.

What does this mean for Starlink's global business?

The commercial damage may prove durable. Europe, Canada and other governments — including in the Middle East, where the Space42 and Viasat scheme is taking shape — are now planning to sidestep Starlink and build sovereign satellite systems of their own. Starlink has become anathema outside the United States, and prospective rivals led by Jeff Bezos's constellation venture and AST SpaceMobile cannot arrive soon enough. Those systems will be smaller and less capable than Starlink, but a network a government cannot control domestically has limited political value. SpaceX, in consequence, risks forfeiting a large slice of its future market.

Eva Berneke, Eutelsat's former CEO, told the BBC in comments published on October 25 that she had joined the operator only about a month before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and saw European authorities change urgency markedly as they looked to Eutelsat to plug holes left by an unreliable Starlink. She said she is confident Eutelsat can "support quite a lot of Ukraine's key military needs", while acknowledging that meeting the country's full communications requirements is another matter — those needs are varied and massive.

With Senate investigations open, bipartisan letters unanswered and the midterms days away, the question of guardrails over SpaceX's dual-use network is likely to move to the centre of US defence procurement policy in the months ahead.