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The complicating factor is that whilst it's certainly true that Starshield answers to the US chain of command, not to Elon and highly unlikely he is authorised to exercise any direct control of it, the claims that Elon personally spoke to the guy at the top of the US chain of command and persuaded him that this would be a good idea are pretty credible (and whether credible or not, US officials have been trying to place the blame on Elon rather than their own chain of command). Plus of course Ukraine absolutely does use regular Starlink, and Elon doesn't actually have magic ability to tell which terminals are being used for offensive operations and which for defensive

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-starlink-elon-musk-trump-d...

His statement is all generalities. "Decisions are made by POTUS". Not "This decision was made by POTUS"--that part you're supposed to infer from the previous. He's being quite careful not to address this instance.

I’ll reply, rather than edit: here’s an update from Zelenskyy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50221788

Political pressure seems to have worked.