US threatens Europe over Starlink restrictions | Hacker News Reader

US threatens Europe over Starlink restrictions

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96 pointsmraniki146 comments

Seems to me that Starlink is de facto an organ of the US government at this point. Should just be nationalized so a demonstrably unstable foreigner doesn't control something of such vital importance.

You think Trump wouldn't immediately promote Musk to General?

He would if he could. And let's not give him any ideas. Musk can do enough damage as it is.

I would be a bit surprised, actually, just because they did have a giant public spat around the end of Musk's weird temp job in DOGE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe

I don't think either of them are that deep.

Then that would be why you're continually baffled that they keep winning.

Lmfao. No one is confused about how billions of dollars, shallow populist “policy”, and the largest news outlets in the country literally knowingly regurgitating false propaganda could win elections.

It’s not some brilliant “kayfabe,” it’s just retard populism, same as it ever was. Now it’s just come to a country with 1) virtually no controls on private political funding and 2) extreme wealth inequality. It would be utterly shocking if it didn’t result in corrupt retards getting elected.

It would be utterly shocking if it didn’t result in corrupt retards getting elected.

Not wrong, but also not helpful.

They don't have to be brilliant. They only have to outplay the rubes, which seems to keep happening. And it's correlated with them being consistently underestimated. But if you feel like you're winning in some way, by all means stay the course.

Yes, they consistently "outplay" in the same way that a mobster who injures a rival's horse before a race is "outplaying" the rival.

I love this goofy pseudo-intellectual aloofness. "Ah yes, I as an enlightened fellow can sit above the fray and commentate objectively on the degradation of the norms and laws that have kept our society operating for centuries."

Unfortunately in addition to "outplaying" people by just lying to the public, they must also govern. And they can't. So they're going to get smacked in the midterms, functionally crippled until 2028, and then likely many of them will be thrown in prison for their various crimes.

Glad that's all figured out! Back to brunch.

It’s going to be so funny when your grandchildren have to learn that you were one of the rationalizers. Even as late as 2026! They’ll be ashamed of you.

I think it's a little crazier to think that the DNC is going to save us than to think that maybe these people have some kind of plan.

You’re the only one here who’s acting like any of these people have elaborate plans or any effective method of pursuing them lmao.

You're right about that - the herd has had its head in the sand since 2016. Sorry for being rude but the mentality that brought you here is not the one that's going to get you out of it. "Lmao."

What makes you think I'm "baffled"? It's not that hard to figure out.

If they were actually 5d chess players, you would expect their governance decisions to be less calamitously stupid, to at least achieve their evil goals if not their stated policy goals. The only thing they actually do well is enrich themselves, and that's just not that hard.

Calamitous for everyone but them. If you oppose them, avoid underestimating them. Playing dumb is the oldest trick in the book because it invites your adversaries to sabotage themselves by aiming low.

No it's pretty often calamitous for them too.

Trump will not be successfully impeached. Musk will not be bankrupted. And neither is going to jail. A calamity for their office, nation, or stakeholders is not their concern, unless you take them at their word. What calamities are you referring to?

I already acknowledged they were good at enriching themselves. But it really beggars belief to think that Iran, ICE murdering random civilians, the economy, etc are going exactly as Trump et al wished they would. That's borderline flat-earth conspiracy logic. They're just idiots making idiot mistakes and having idiot spats.

The idea of a drug addicted undocumented immigrant being in charge of our space program and sat comms does seem incredibly unwise.

Wait till you hear about Wernher von Braun

Oh god did he disrupt active US/allied military operations?

Dude, he was a literal German Nazi, the weapons he made were killing US and allied soldiers and civilians during the WWII

Wait you mean he was doing that while he was employed by or claimed loyalty to the US?

That’s crazy. We didn’t charge him with treason?

The Starshield portion of Starlink is already controlled by the government. It was Starshield that restricted access to Ukraine, and the decision reportedly came from the White House.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...

OP's article of course is about spectrum allocation in the US and potential trade retaliation, which isn't all that related to Musk's control of Starlink.

Current reporting is that Musk approached the White House with the idea of slowing down Starshield.

And the situation here is that Musk's instability is causing Europe to want to not depend on Starlink, and by extension not depend on the US. So now we're using other organs of the state to essentially coerce them into using a system that is de facto controlled by an unstable foreigner, but is part of the US defense apparatus.

That is what sources told The Telegraph[0]

[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...

It was cut off, not slowed. Maybe Musk tried to lessen the impact of raging Cheetos?

I think "slowed down" is a strange description of what happened, which is that it was cut off above a certain speed limit. As in a terminal physically traveling faster than (IIRC) 100 miles per hour would shut off.

Perhaps also worth noting that Starlink is used only for defensive purposes, specifically against "Shahed" drones, which have top speeds of 340 km/h (210 mph). Restricting the speed is effectively helping Putin/Russia murder civilians.

Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Musk ordered the restriction.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/10/20/trump-musk-starlink-ukra...

> and the decision reportedly came from the White House.

That looks like outdated information. The request to slow Starshield came directly from Musk.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...

Which sounds more plausible - that Musk is able to bypass the US government to do whatever he wants with Starshield in Ukraine or that the US administration did this to comply with Trump's wishes to remind the Ukrainians that they are dependent on the US and cannot ignore the wishes of the US President?

Nothing says Musk bypassed the government. The currently reported story is that Musk (presumably seeing Trump was throwing in his lot with Russia), approached the White House with an idea, and the White House agreed to it.

> The Starshield portion of Starlink is already controlled by the government.

How do you suggest this is implemented, in a way that Musk has no way to control it?

Unfortunately Trump is worse than Musk. And it's Trump who's to blame for the Ukraine speed restrictions.

Current reporting is that Musk approached the White House with the idea. Of course in reality the White House holds all ultimate responsibility, but that doesn't mean Musk is without guilt (especially if he proposed the idea for... some reason...?)

Why should Musk feel guilty about an administration's decision that he has no influence over?

I don't care whether he feels guilty. He is guilty. And as described above (as well as in many ways not described above), he does have influence over it.

Should just be nationalized so a demonstrably unstable foreigner doesn't control something of such vital importance.

Yes, clearly a demonstrably unstable chief executive is the right man for the job.

If not just to get out of the hands of an unstable corp, then at least to distance it from an unstable man...

Not that the US government is much better. Maybe they should wait 20 years before that, after they go through their looming depression. You always get half decent policy after a depression.

> Ambassador Andrew Puzder warns about ‘devastating’ retaliation if Brussels goes ahead with plans to limit spectrum access for non-EU companies

Please do.

The more the US shows that it is an enemy to Europe the better.

I hope the leaders on this side of the pond grow cojones and start to treat the US and its companies as a threat to EU and the countries within.

Awww... more threats from Usania. This will definitely help... the EU move to more independence. More and more governments are dropping US made stuff as much as possible and pushing for local alternatives... way to go!

If I understand this correctly the Europeans hope that by banning the spectrum where Starlink operates, they will spur the development of home grown operators that provide the same service ... is that realistic?

Even if we don't spur the development of home grown operators (and IMO launch on the scale of Starlink is somewhat unrealistic any time soon), it will at least prevent us getting get another incidental dependency on US systems which we can be threatened with loss of access to at any point.

Of course, why wouldn't it? There's nothing unique about SpaceX's sattelites, or about putting them in orbit.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/these-are-the-six-european-altern...

The internal cost per tonne to low Earth orbit differs vastly between SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Ariane’s best offer:

  Vehicle                       Cost / tonne
  Falcon 9 (booster recovery)   ~$2 million
  Ariane 64                     ~$5 million
  Starship (projected)          <$500,000

To meaningfully compete, European launch providers must try to match these costs, then spend a decade putting these vehicles into orbit. That’s no easy task.

No better time to start than now, right?

They should just outsource the launches to ISRO - one of the world's cheapest.

Source? Quick search did not reveal any internal cost per tonne to orbit numbers.

Either way, if they did outsource these launches, they would not be paying the cost, but the price (meaning cost + margin). And that is much more expensive then just buying it from SpX.

Remind me, which starship?

nothing unique about it but they come in last and own the market from companies in this field for decades. EU rulz!!11

It is, there are lots of European launch companies that will have their first launches in 2027 and all target cheap launch services which is the key to Starlink. Isar Aerospace has already put a payload in orbit, but they are only one of many.

The europeans reserve strategic resources so that they can manage supply chain risk, since they consider the US one.

The US (dependably) proves them right, by threatening their supply lines.

It is a pipe dream like Von der Layen's tweets https://x.com/vonderleyen

Europe doesn't need the same service. A far higher percentage of homes in Europe have access true high speed internet over fiber or wires than the US does. Europe can get itself the same capability with far fewer satellites.

We need equivalent service to guide our drones to Moscow when Putin comes to the rest of Europe

You don't need many satellites for that. Starlink is designed for millions of homes, not hundreds of drones.

You need a production pipeline to replace the ones that get shot down.

1) Putin won't come for the rest of Europe.

2) Even if the does, why attack Moscow? Russian civilians have nothing to do with the war and we're not barbarians.

3) Even if we wanted to, Moscow as a target is so big that dead reckoning starting from Portugal is probably enough to hit it. There are also a lot of other means of guidance, including sun/stars, Gee and public FM radio stations.

4) And why dones instead of ballistic missiles?

> they will spur the development of home grown operators

It’s already funded and scheduled to start launching in 2029 [1]. (Bit nerfed given Europe hasn’t yet gotten serious about launch…)

[1] https://www.grosswald.org/european-commission-spacerise-iris...

https://archive.is/9GrWd

Nobody is afraid of the US anymore. You lost a war with Iran and they did not even put forward a Navy or an Air Force...

That doesn't make their treatment of other countries go away.

That's brave, friend. I, living here, am annoyed of geriatrics in the wheelhouse.

It's not about age. Compare Sanders and Trump; their politics aside, just take being able to hold a conversation and have honest arguments, listen to advisors when they really are right, that sort of thing. Or Mamdami and Thiel. And hey, I'm sure there's some young-ish, bright, yet very capitalistic people who also have a good head on their shoulders, too. I just really like Mamdami, partly because how even the Dems shirked him before he won, and then Trump was like "I like that guy". He probably also likes Thiel. Which shows anybody can do anything, it's totally... random! :D

I am not talking about ageism, I am familiar with that myself. Once you hit 60+ or so, there is cognitive decline and retardation, you are less flexible and too set in your ways.

Calvin Coolidge 1923–1929 51

Herbert Hoover 1929–1933 54

Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933–1945 51

Harry S. Truman 1945–1953 60

Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953–1961 62

John F. Kennedy 1961–1963 43

Lyndon B. Johnson 1963–1969 55

Richard Nixon 1969–1974 56

Gerald Ford 1974–1977 61

Jimmy Carter 1977–1981 52

Ronald Reagan 1981–1989 69

George H. W. Bush 1989–1993 64

Bill Clinton 1993–2001 46

George W. Bush 2001–2009 54

Barack Obama 2009–2017 47

Donald Trump 2017–2021 70

Joe Biden 2021–2025 78

Donald Trump 2025–present 78

We need younger blood at the wheel. The geezers can golf.

More like being afraid of the US is independent of your own decisions, because they just hit you regardless.

I mean you could say something similar about Russia in its asymmetric conflict with Ukraine. Both still have scary capacity.

I thought it was Starshield that was restricted, not Starlink, which was already restricted like all civilian tech?

Europe is putting economic restrictions on Starlink; the technical restrictions the US placed on Starshield are unrelated.

And Rubio says Ukraine never had Starshield, which is interesting.

The video clip of Rubio saying this is on C-SPAN for those interested.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=T2ZEMRKjTz8

If you listen carefully - it sounds like they do have Starshield, but only for internal access (not enabled for deep strikes)?

And they weren't using it for deep strikes. They were using it to enable the anti-Shahed drones which need very fast updates because their targets moving at a clip that is just manageable. Any kind of delay and they'll miss and that means another one of these crap machines lands on a Ukrainian city.

Messing with that is roughly the same as enabling Germany to bomb London more effectively using V2s.

Administration is no longer a reliable narrator - not even on their own position

Ban Teslas in Europe then. Being selective works both ways.

Not a bad idea - could couple it with further reducing European tariffs on Chinese EVs, which already outsell Tesla there.

We could even shock invest in railways and bikes and restrict all cars.

Yea pay for Putin's oil instead lol

The baller move would be tariffing new sales of Tesla and Starlink unite (and a lower tariff on subscriptions paid by owners at the time the law id proposed) as long as Musk controls either and letting in a number of Chinese cars in exchange for China quitting it with helping Russia in Ukraine.

Imagine being this naive. Reading this hurts me physically.

There are tons of other vendors for electric vehicles.

There are other EV brands here. Tesla's share of BEV Market in Europe is like 9%.

Hey grok, whats the best selling EV in Europe?

lmao

Actually banning facebook/instagram/twitter|x/tiktok would make so much more sense.

On the one hand - financial loses, on the other - more social sanity in the EU…

It is the same starlink that was disabled on request of either WH or Musk to bully Ukraine.

That's Starshield, which is not under Musk's control. Reportedly the WH did make the decision.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...

It's the same tech but after Musk took flack for making a decision on Ukraine's military use, they split off a portion for the US government to control.

Again, as repeated elsewhere in the thread, Musk requested that Starshield be slowed.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...

Anonymous source can say anything and telegraph can fully make it up also. And it also doesn't matter if Musk suggested it.

The fact is Starshield is controlled by US Govt and they decide what happens with it. Not Musk.

Starlink is controlled by SpaceX, Musk decides what happens with it. It is not allowed to use Starlink for most military purposes. Nothing changed now.

Complaints about anonymous sources might be legitimate when there are legitimate protections for whistleblowers, but an autocratic regime like the US' current government does not deserve any benefit of the doubt - they literally keep openly threatening dissenters and whistleblowers!

Until the rule of law has been re-established and participants have been prosecuted, the standard you're holding sources to is unreasonable.

Before the execution livestream was called off, Trump said that people who leak to the press should be shot. It doesn't take a big leap to see where this is going and what the stakes are.

that's just your opinion; biased opinion at that. When the autocratic regime of Obama ruined Snowden's life, where was your outrage?

That seems an uncharitable assumption. I for one strongly object both to today's abuses and the treatment of Snowden, and GP may well feel the same.

"Uncharitable assumptions" are this user's whole MO: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50154028

It's probably best not to feed the troll.

Uncharitable assumption? hello?

This whole thread started with uncharitable assumption saying Musk did it. The fact is Starshield is govt controlled and spacex/musk is not responsible for any change like this.

I object today's abuses and treatment of snowden assange etc too. That doesn't mean I have to have TDS/EDS and uncharitable assumption for people I don't like and charitable for the ones I like.

No, it's pretty universally accepted that blowing the whistle is not safe under autocratic regimes.

You're not asking in good faith, so I won't dignify your whataboutism with a discussion.

Say a truth and mix it with some lies. Good job calling democratic government as autocratic. Remember it when your democratic govt is called communist.

> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”

Devastated companies can’t buy US products.

So go on and hit your exports again

https://archive.is/9GrWd

And yet companies are wondering why the EU is moving to build their own tech sector, separate from the US. Another reason why.

And the big winner of this is China. I heard China is building its own starlink and I would not be surprised they will offer verifiable guarantees to the EU on "spying" should the EU want to use China's version.

China should be sending Trump all kinds of Thank You notes. Trump already gave China the lead in Medical Research, Trump is helping China to take over Chip Development and he just started handing China the lead in AI.

You get what you vote for. At least the US will be the leader in Bible Research.

EU will have IRIS, it's own version of starshield by 2030.

> it’d be a lot easier if we were working with Europe instead of fighting Europe

Seriously? When will this shit show finally end?

When the American empire finally crumbles. The final stages are always the most painful.

> European companies face “devastating” retaliation from Washington if Brussels presses ahead with plans to restrict American rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX from parts of the European market, the US ambassador to the EU has warned.

> Andrew Puzder’s warning comes after the European Commission this year proposed reserving part of its spectrum band that allows smartphones to connect directly to satellites for European players. That would limit the frequencies for Chinese and US companies such as SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite network.

> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.

Eh, this seems like a fairly even tit-for-tat, for once.

Would this even be "devastating"? Would any of them been able to sell in the US anyway, given the position Starlink is in? I see occasional headlines that Starlink is forcing out other US providers, from the US, but even without that kind of thing going on, this doesn't even feel like much of a threat.

now we see who trump really works for

I wonder what history would be like if Trump had been president during WW2.

Mein Deutsch waere viel besser gewesen...

The UK would most likely be speaking German now. Possibly even the US.

The USSR would have taken over all of Europe, not just Eastern. What would have happened to the former British and French empires? Presumably they'd have been turned communist, but would their struggles for independence have gone the same way?

The Manhattan project would have been announced before it went anywhere, undermined during development and produced no real result. Japan would not have been nuked, but also would not have been invaded and the Pacific theatre would have in general developed in a completely different way. Without the American nuclear arsenal, the world may have skipped the cold war and nukes, or perhaps other states would have made them and used them in a heavy mutual bombardment without restraint.

Eventually in Europe, glasnost and perestroika would still have happened, and the USSR would still have fallen; but the geopolitical and economic importance of the USA would be little different to that of Brazil.

USSR couldn't do much without all western support. Lots of disposable soldiers but no weapons for them.

It may have been limited, but the Axis forces were busy repeating Napoleon's classic blunder of freezing to death because Russia was too big to Blitzkrieg.

This forum in particular, but also our society in general is tremendously influenced by Grace Hopper's "compiler" (we would not call the thing Grace came up with a "compiler" today but we'd recognise her ideas). Grace appears to be the first person who noticed that the machine could be told to do the boring part where you turn your program into machine code to run on that machine. Grace's idea is meta-applicable, it applies not only to many other things but also to itself, things get out of hand very fast and that's how less than a century later we're here.

Grace was in the US Navy in World War II. Even in our real history where Donald Trump was not President, Grace did not meet their strict requirements for women and so she was only able to get in via a special exemption. Can you imagine in the "Make sure our Warriors look good on TV" world of Pete Hegseth that they'd ever accept Grace? No, the Navy is for big strong men.

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