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Comment by DennisP | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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That looks like outdated information.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?

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