U.S. Representative Mike Levin, a California Democrat, said on Monday that “either Donald Trump is lying or Elon Musk is lying. Maybe both.” He cited a Wall Street Journal report that the two men spoke by phone about speed limits on the Starshield satellite service Ukraine uses to fly drone interceptors, while both have publicly disclaimed responsibility for the limits.
Levin made the remarks in a video of just over a minute that he posted on X on Monday afternoon. “The American people deserve to know who made the decision to turn off Ukraine’s access to Starlink, leaving them more vulnerable to Russian attacks,” he wrote in the post.
“On October 14th, Ukraine’s military suddenly lost speed on Starshield, the military version of Starlink,” Levin said in the video. “Ukraine relies on it to fly the interceptor drones that chase down Russian attack drones headed for its cities. President Zelensky warned that people would die. So who did it?”
He laid out the competing accounts. “Reuters reported the order came from inside the White House. Musk claimed he wasn’t responsible. He said the U.S. military and ultimately the president decide those limits. Trump said he didn’t think either he or Musk was responsible and claimed he didn’t know who was,” Levin said. “Now the Wall Street Journal reports that Musk personally ordered the slowdown. And according to the Journal, Trump and Musk talked about it by phone shortly after it became public. So which is it? If they spoke about it, how does the president not know?”
“And if a private billionaire can throttle an ally’s defenses in the middle of a war on his own, who exactly is in charge?” Levin said. “Congress needs answers and I’m gonna keep asking until we get them.”
The Journal first reported on Oct. 20, citing U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter, that Musk ordered the slowdown, which it said began on Oct. 14. That Journal exclusive, which could not be read directly on wsj.com but was reviewed in a syndicated copy published by the Hindustan Times, said Musk and Trump “discussed the Starlink decision in a call soon after the slowdown became public, while the president was campaigning last week,” according to two of the people. One person also claimed the two had discussed the matter before the speed cap was imposed, while some U.S. officials said Musk acted unilaterally. Levin’s description of a call “shortly after it became public” matches that report. On Oct. 22, the Journal reported in a second exclusive that Trump had called Musk on Oct. 21 and asked him to lift the restrictions, according to a Benton Institute summary of that article, which could not be read in full. According to that summary, Trump was frustrated that speeds remained capped at around 100 miles per hour, and the system was working more normally on Oct. 22, though some Ukrainian officials said it had not been fully restored.
Those accounts conflict with an Oct. 15 Reuters exclusive, which said, citing two U.S. officials and a Western official, that the order came from inside the White House, according to a copy of the Reuters report published by Defense News. A senior U.S. official told Reuters, “No such request was ever made by the president.” Musk wrote on X on Oct. 14 that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” Trump told reporters on Oct. 16, “I don’t know if it was anybody, because it wasn’t me. And I don’t think it was Elon,” according to White House video of that exchange. On Oct. 19, he told reporters he did not know who was responsible, “but I would like to find out,” the Journal reported. Asked on Oct. 22 whether he had called Musk, Trump said, “Whether I called or whether somebody else called, it doesn’t make any difference. I guess the bottom line, he put it back,” according to a later White House video. On Oct. 23, he said, “I have not spoken to him. I might have to, but I have not,” and added that he had “heard it was fixed,” according to White House video of his departure remarks and a Reuters account carried by the Hindustan Times.
Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Oct. 22 that “it’s completely understandable” that Musk “doesn’t want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do,” Anadolu Agency reported. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Oct. 20 that “we haven’t made any directives or anything like that” and that “Starlink has the option to make decisions concerning its terms of service,” according to the Journal. Zelenskyy’s warning came in an Oct. 14 interview with Piers Morgan. Asked for his message to Musk, he said, “This decision will bring a lot of human losses,” and, “People will die. Of course, if attacks will continue,” according to a transcript of the episode.
Levin’s video did not mention several developments from the days before he posted it. On Saturday, Zelenskyy said in a post on X that Starlink and Starshield had been restored “to the speeds we had before the restrictions.” On Sunday, he said in another X post that “restrictions on Starlink/Starshield” had been one of three challenges in talks with U.S. officials in Oslo, and that the issue had been resolved.
Musk, meanwhile, gave a new explanation. “Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week,” he wrote on X on Saturday. Later on Saturday, U.S. time, he added, “Starshield use is a decision of the US government. End of story,” in a separate X post. On Sunday, in a later post, he wrote that “Zelensky himself posted about using Starlink for offensive drone strikes.” Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Zelenskyy on defense technology, wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday that Starlink terminals over Ukraine had been limited to movement speeds of 70 to 90 kilometers per hour since the winter, that Starlink does not work over Russia, and that Ukraine therefore “PHYSICALLY CANNOT USE COMMERCIAL STARLINK” for deep or mid-range strikes, in a translation from Ukrainian. Serhii Sternenko, a former Ukrainian defense ministry adviser who raises money for drones, wrote in an X post on Saturday that drone missions requiring satellite links could only use Starshield and that “Ukraine did not violate the terms of use.”
Other Democrats have made the same argument. Senator Adam Schiff of California said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “You’ve got the president saying one thing, you’ve got Elon Musk saying another thing … Somebody is lying here. Maybe they’re all lying in different ways,” and said that if Democrats retake the Senate, Hegseth “should be brought in” to testify, NBC News reported. Levin made a similar charge in an Oct. 23 post, writing that “someone is lying and it’s either Elon Musk or the President of the United States.”
Levin’s statement that Trump or Musk “is lying” is his characterization. Neither man has been shown to have made a knowingly false statement. Levin’s description of Starshield as “the military version of Starlink” is broadly accurate, and Zelenskyy did warn that people would die. Levin’s post said Ukraine’s access was turned off, but Ukrainian officials described a speed cap after an initial loss of connection. The Reuters and Journal accounts of who ordered the limits both rest on unnamed sources and contradict each other. Neither Trump nor Musk has confirmed either reported call; Trump declined to say on Oct. 22 whether he had called Musk and said on Oct. 23 that he had not spoken with him. Levin did not mention that Ukraine says speeds have been restored, or Musk’s newer claim that the limits targeted offensive drone use, which Ukrainian figures dispute. As of Monday, Trump, Musk, SpaceX and the White House had not responded publicly to Levin’s video.