How stupid can the world’s ‘smartest man’ be?

Musk says the US government determines the restrictions. Trump denied giving the order himself and said he did not think Musk was behind it either. Reuters had earlier reported that the instruction came from the White House, without naming an individual decision-maker. The precise division of responsibility remains disputed. None of those accounts makes obstructing interception equipment acceptable.

The limit of roughly 160 kilometres per hour concerns the movement of the satellite terminal. Above that speed, the connection can drop while a drone keeps flying. One Ukrainian unit told Reuters it was experiencing interruptions of ten to twenty seconds at just 110 to 120 kilometres per hour. Missions were cancelled.

Adviser Serhii Beskrestnov warned of problems intercepting Russian jet-powered drones. He said an information channel used by combat helicopters fighting Shaheds had also been affected. The military nature of that equipment does not make the civilians it protects any less important.

The first reports of service being restored came on 15 October. Commander Yevhen Karas’s unit was able to resume operations. Yet on 19 October, Zelensky was still reporting restrictions affecting, among other things, defence against Shaheds. The official account of his 20 October conversation with Marco Rubio again said Starlink and Starshield needed to be restored. Invoking terms of use, as Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did, offers no protection against an incoming drone.

Business opportunities are on the table for Russia

Meanwhile, Musk had publicly turned against Zelensky. On 10 October, he responded to a White House video in which Trump told Ukraine to leave Russian refineries and diesel fuel alone: “Zelensky has gone too far.” That post was about diesel. Trump had been pressuring Ukraine over refinery attacks since September.

Three days later, on the evening of 13 October, Ukrainian units began experiencing the connection problems, according to CBS. The president of the country under attack was publicly rebuked; his defenders then faced a satellite restriction. Anyone so concerned about Russian economic damage should give at least as much weight to protecting Ukrainian lives.

Russia, meanwhile, had economic prospects to look forward to. On 16 October, Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev said Russia and the US were discussing joint data centres, including projects using small nuclear power plants. A nuclear-powered data centre had already been reported as part of a broader Russian-American business package in February. Dmitriev named no American customer, location or signed contract.

On 8, 9 and 11 October, Ukraine struck Yandex data centres that support ordinary services. Yandex services have also been used for Russian influence operations. A Lund study published in May 2025 describes how the Social Design Agency stored memes and screenshots on Yandex Cloud. Evidence of published bot comments was stored there too: a record of propaganda work delivered.

In September, Graphika documented a Russia-linked campaign targeting Democratic candidates in the 2026 US midterms. Fabricated news footage and manipulated celebrity videos sought to portray Democrats as criminals. No link between that campaign and the Yandex facilities that were hit has been established.

Musk has also helped spread a fabrication himself. AFP documented how, in February 2025, he shared a video bearing the E! News logo and falsely claiming that USAID had paid for Hollywood stars’ trips to Ukraine. The video was fake; ISD attributes it to Operation Overload. Musk thereby gave anti-Ukrainian disinformation a much larger platform.

In our earlier analysis of satellite power, Russian diesel and Ukraine’s security, we described the dangers of that dependence. Russia can hold out the prospect of economic cooperation. Musk can publicly condemn Zelensky and, according to the new reporting, order restrictions on the satellite service. Ukrainian civilians cannot simply turn to another power broker for protection.

Russia remains responsible for its attacks. SpaceX and Washington bear responsibility for their own interventions in the defences against them. Weakening those defences becomes no more reasonable when dressed up in contractual language. Protecting human lives should not be a bargaining chip for a businessman or a foreign government.

A flying car can wait. A drone that has to intercept a Russian Shahed cannot. Anyone who restricts that defender’s connection makes other people’s safety subordinate to their own terms. No futuristic show can make up for that.