Ukraine says a speed cap on military-grade Starshield terminals is still in force, even though President Trump says he told SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to lift it.
The two accounts are the whole story so far. Trump says he instructed Musk to remove the restriction. Ukraine reports that the cap, which is measured in miles per hour, has not changed. The source gives no figure for the limit, no date for Trump's conversation with Musk, and no named Ukrainian official.
Starshield is SpaceX's military-oriented version of its Starlink satellite internet service. A cap expressed in miles per hour most likely limits how fast a terminal can move while staying connected, not how fast data flows. That would matter for terminals mounted on vehicles or drones, though the source does not spell out which uses are affected.
The gap between the claims shows where the control sits. Starlink has carried Ukrainian military communications since 2022, and SpaceX, a private company, sets the terms. Musk has previously acknowledged declining a request to enable the service near Crimea in 2022. A presidential instruction is not a configuration change, and the cap can only come off when SpaceX changes it.
Both accounts could be accurate if Musk simply has not acted yet. The open question is who flips the setting and on what timeline, and the source names neither.