President Donald Trump asked Elon Musk to ease restrictions he had imposed on the military-grade version of SpaceX‘s Starlink system in Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing U.S. officials.
The Starshield system, which Ukraine depends on in its war against Russia, was “working more normally Thursday, shortly after” Trump spoke to Musk by phone, U.S. and Ukrainian officials told the Journal.
Trump said later Thursday he did not “want to comment one way or the other” about whether he made the call to Musk.
“Whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn’t make any difference,” Trump told reporters outside the White House as he departed for a campaign rally in Iowa.
“The bottom line, he put it back,” Trump said of Musk.
The Journal reported Tuesday that Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX and a critic of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had ordered the Starlink slowdown.
Two unnamed sources in that report said Trump and Musk had discussed the decision to throttle Starlink “soon after” the change first became public last week, while one source said Musk had spoken to Trump prior to imposing the speed cap.
Trump has repeatedly denied involvement in the decision and said he does not know if Musk was behind it.
“I don’t know who did it, but I was not involved,” Trump said Wednesday.
The Starlink controversy, which drew bipartisan concern and criticism from lawmakers, emerged as Trump has ramped up criticism of Zelenskyy for continuing to target Russian energy infrastructure. At the same time, Trump has pursued a deal to ease sanctions on Russia so it can supply some diesel on the global market.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that he does not believe Musk would throttle Starlink without “at least the acquiescence of the White House.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate homeland security committee’s investigations subcommittee, on Thursday launched an inquiry into how SpaceX’s satellite tech was “degraded for Ukraine without notice.”
“This decision to limit critical technology for a key ally not only put Ukrainian forces at risk and their people in peril, but raises serious questions about who controls critical capabilities the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars to procure,” Blumenthal said in letters to Musk and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The White House and an email associated with Musk did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment on Thursday’s report that Trump had asked Musk to lift the restrictions.
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