Elon Musk ordered a Starlink communications blackout over parts of Ukraine during a critical 2022 counteroffensive against Russia, leading to a military disaster and preventing soldiers from retaking territory held by Russia.

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation that works as an international telecommunication provider, part of the American aerospace company SpaceX, founded by controversial billionaire Elon Musk. The network provides coverage to around 130 countries and territories, aiming to provide global mobile broadband.

SpaceX's Starlink suffered one of its biggest international outages on Thursday when an internal software failure knocked tens of thousands of users offline, a rare disruption for Elon Musk's powerful satellite internet system.

Elon Musk's Starlink was down for hours last night following a global outage - and users vented their fury, demanding refunds for the satellite internet service

Reports of service disruptions flooded outage tracker DownDetector, with users experiencing internet outages and, in some cases, total blackouts. Starlink and its founder, Elon Musk, confirmed the outage and said they were investigating the issue.

T-Mobile's T-Satellite service, powered by Elon Musk's Starlink, could backfire once a speculated 12-month exclusivity deal ends.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has bought Starlink services — but also fell into the crosshairs of Musk. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in 2024, Musk said FEMA was blocking deliveries of the terminals, a claim the agency called false. FEMA did not respond to repeated requests for comment on its use of Starlink.