Musk’s interference in Ukraine’s Starlink is a warning to all countries that rely on private technology

As Donald Trump tried to turn Russian diesel into a political asset to help him avoid disaster in the November midterm elections, the Internet put itself on the front lines.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian forces have relied on Starlink to communicate, and essentially to manage the 21st century battlefield. When its service to Ukraine was halted last October, big questions arose about who was responsible for pulling that particular lever.

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Elon Musk personally ordered the shutdown of Starlink.

As Musk toyed with the levers of war and peace for his own political gain, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. government had no control over decisions made by private companies.

This leaves Ukraine at the mercy of a private citizen, with no formal responsibility in U.S. foreign policy, capable of making a decision that immediately affects another country’s ability to defend itself.

And while this matters urgently for Ukraine right now, the very fact that modern warfare relies so heavily on technologies like Starlink, placing so much power in private hands, should cause capitals around the world to rethink their situation, especially those whose own security may be compromised.

One of the great paradoxes of this war is that Ukraine has redefined modern warfare without ever truly controlling the technologies on which its own survival depends.

Elon Musk is not a neutral figure. His desire to dictate what Ukraine can do on the battlefield is a choice defined by his own motivations.

As part of his Starlink decision, Musk invested $443 million to help Republican candidates in the midterm elections. While Trump has a political interest in diesel prices, Musk’s interest in the election is one of self-preservation.

If Democrats win either house of Congress, he will face intense scrutiny over why his businesses and wealth were deployed.

Lying on a social media platform you own is not a crime, but lying to Congress is.

The problem in this fiasco is that Ukraine’s military strategy now appears subject to US domestic political incentives. Most troubling is that these include private citizens who have a direct interest in the outcome of an election and who have influence over battlefield technology.

Ukraine is exposed to US domestic politics because it is waging the war of the future, a war fueled by private technology.

The nature of this technology has changed.

For most of the 20th century, military technology could be purchased, and then a country was free to do with it what it wanted. Once a plane rolled off a Boeing assembly line, it belonged to the buyer.

The shift to the Internet battlefield is that the technology functions more like a subscription than a purchase. Military systems rely on software and infrastructure maintained by the private sector. Buying a piece of technology does not necessarily mean controlling how and where it is used.

During the first four years of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Congress, sat down with presidents and built relationships on the American political stage.

This was done under the assumption that the effects Ukraine would feel from the United States would come from political decisions.

Political figures can be challenged in political terms. Ukraine, even with less coverage in the American media, remains an issue on which politicians can be judged.

But when conditions are set by a private company, Ukraine has no ability to challenge its decisions through the channels it has spent years cultivating. Washington tells the world it is essential to Ukraine’s survival, yet it declares itself powerless to influence the decisions of the Republican Party’s most generous donor.

This is one of the characteristics of the second Trump administration: the rapprochement of Washington and Silicon Valley.

Weeks before Starlink shut down, Musk, alongside Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, was tapped to define the future of American military power.

Meanwhile, Trump is harnessing American diplomatic power to demand that his allies and partners become dependent on American AI technology.

While the United States criticizes China for the deep integration of the CCP and its technology sector, the U.S. government under Trump is using its power around the world to sell American technology to private buyers while asking Silicon Valley leaders to make decisions about the future of American security.

And yet, when one of these companies makes a decision politically beneficial to the political fortunes of Republicans, the division between the public and private sectors suddenly becomes sacred.

This transformation has required a greater emphasis on private production, on companies that can innovate using their own money and then sell to governments, rather than letting governments specify what they want in advance.

This made Ukraine vulnerable to decisions made by the leaders of these private companies.

Ukraine continues to fight a war to prevent an invading regime from determining its future as a nation. But what does political independence mean if the means by which a country defends itself can be limited by private interests beyond its political reach?

As U.S. allies and partners invest more in America’s technological infrastructure, their political relationships with Washington may no longer be enough to guarantee their sovereignty.

Editor’s note: The views expressed in the opinion section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.