Elon Musk ordered employees to cut Starlink service over areas of Ukraine in September 2022 during a counteroffensive by Kyiv to retake territory from Russia, Reuters reported.
The decision left Ukrainian forces in a communications blackout; surveillance drones went suddenly dark and long-range artillery units, which used Starlink to help aim, floundered. In making the call, Musk took “the outcome of a war into his own hands,” one source told Reuters.
SpaceX disputed the reporting.
Previously, Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk revealed the tech mogul in 2022 had refused to allow Ukraine to use Starlink to launch an offensive against Russia in Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.