WSJ:
WASHINGTON—President Trump called Elon Musk on Wednesday and asked him to lift restrictions on a military-grade version of Starlink in Ukraine that the SpaceX chief had throttled, U.S. officials said.
The system was working more normally Thursday, shortly after their conversation, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said. Some Ukrainian officials said the system wasn’t restored to full functionality but was working at higher speeds than under the cap.
Trump told Musk he was frustrated the system’s speeds remained capped at around 100 miles an hour, officials said. The speed limit rendered some of Ukraine’s offensive drones and interceptors powerless against Russian attacks. Their conversation followed a Wall Street Journal report revealing that Musk ordered the slowdown, though SpaceX and the White House have differing accounts about whether the world’s richest man acted alone or at the administration’s behest.
Trump has told aides and allies this week that he wanted to reverse the slowdown of Starlink, which Ukraine’s forces use to defend themselves along the front line, the officials said.
“Removal of the throttle limit will do much to enable Ukraine’s strike capabilities at operational depths and its current effort to scale up deployment of jet-powered interceptors,” said Michael Kofman, an expert on the war at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kofman added that he had heard from Ukrainian military units that early tests suggest the system is now working more regularly.
“I don’t comment one way or the other,” Trump said on Thursday when asked about the Journal’s reporting that he had called Musk. “The bottom line: He put it back.”