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By Hollie Silverman
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Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other administration officials should be called to testify about restrictions affecting Ukraine’s access to satellite services provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, saying conflicting explanations surrounding the situation warrant congressional scrutiny.
“Absolutely. The defense secretary Hegseth should be brought in, anyone who has knowledge of what happened,” Schiff told NBC News’ Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker when asked whether he would call administration officials to testify if Democrats regain control of the Senate in this year's midterm elections.
“You've got the president saying one thing. You've got Elon Musk saying another thing. You have them both saying different things at different times,” Schiff said. “Somebody is lying here. Maybe they're all lying in different ways. But we need to find out.”
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Schiff added: “Certainly the world's richest person shouldn't be controlling our national security interests. That is a spectacular threat to our national security if it is true. We should find out. Something isn't adding up here.”
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Defense for a comment from Hegseth by email Sunday.
The dispute highlights Ukraine’s reliance on satellite communications for military operations as its war against Russia continues.
Ukrainian officials said access to Starlink and Starshield, the latter being SpaceX's military-grade system, had been restricted in the country without advance warning and that SpaceX had placed a speed limit on Starlink terminals earlier this month, disrupting battlefield operations.
Ukraine has targeted Russian oil and gas facilities in an effort to curb energy revenue used to finance Moscow’s war. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Ukrainian refinery attacks have cost Russia roughly 1 percent of its gross domestic product.
Moscow, meanwhile, has continued targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
President Donald Trump has pressured Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil facilities as high diesel prices remain an issue in the United States ahead of the midterms. Trump blamed Ukraine’s attacks for contributing to those prices, while his administration moved to allow Russian diesel back onto global markets and relaxed sanctions to authorize imports into the U.S.
Meanwhile, Musk distanced himself and SpaceX from Ukrainian-reported restrictions and said the U.S. government had the final say before saying Saturday that Ukraine had violated the terms of service.
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Elon Musk Says Ukraine Violated Starlink Terms
Reuters reported on October 22, citing two U.S. officials and a Western official briefed on the matter, that the order to slow the Starshield service used by Ukraine came from inside the White House. The officials did not identify who made the decision.
However, a senior U.S. official told Reuters that “no such request was ever made by the president,” while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on October 18 that the instruction came from the U.S. government and was technically implemented by SpaceX.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also disputed suggestions that the U.S. government was responsible for decisions involving Starlink. Rubio said the United States and Trump had “nothing to do” with Starlink’s decisions after Ukrainian claims that speed restrictions had been imposed.
Schiff argued on Sunday that those conflicting accounts should be investigated.
“I saw Elon Musk today. He tweets that, ‘Oh, they're just preventing Ukraine from violating the policies.’ Something changed within the last week,” the California Democrat said. “What was it that changed? Why did it change? What impact is it having on Ukraine's ability to defend itself? Is this in our national security interest?”
He added: “These are the questions we should ask, which frankly Republicans have been unwilling to ask.”
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Elon Says Ukraine Violated Starlink Terms
Musk wrote in an X post on Saturday that Ukraine violated the terms of service governing its use of Starlink.
“Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strike operations is explicitly a violation of the terms of use,” the billionaire wrote. “Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.”
Musk said the commercial service is limited to “civilian or defensive use.”
On Saturday, Serhii Beskrestnov, a defense technology adviser to Zelensky, disputed Musk’s account, saying existing restrictions on Ukraine’s civilian Starlink service already prevented such offensive use.
“It’s very strange that Elon Musk doesn’t know about the restrictions on Starlink’s operation in Ukraine,” he wrote online.
Zelensky Says Starlink and Starshield Back at Strength
On Saturday, Zelensky said Starlink and Starshield operations had been restored to the speeds Kyiv had before the restrictions.
“The most important thing today is that Starlink and Starshield operations have been restored to the speeds we had before the restrictions,” Zelensky wrote in an X post. “The speeds are now where they need to be.”
“This matters: for our frontline logistics, for defending Ukraine against jet-powered ‘shaheds,’” he continued.
Zelensky thanked those who he said had helped address the issue.
“I thank all Americans and all our partners who took this seriously and truly helped – members of Congress, senators, all the media, the State Department, and the President,” he wrote. “Protecting lives matters.”
Zelensky had pressed Rubio over restoring the access and reported that Ukraine lacked a viable alternative to the satellite network earlier in the month.
The controversy also comes amid persistent tensions between Zelensky and the Trump administration. In February 2025, Zelensky and Vice President JD Vance publicly differed over the White House's push for negotiations to end the war, with Zelensky stressing the need for security guarantees and Vance calling for a “durable, lasting peace.”
Days later, a contentious Oval Office meeting involving Trump, Vance and Zelensky further strained relations, with Trump accusing Zelensky of not wanting to make a deal and saying he needed to be “more appreciative.”
Those tensions have continued. On October 19, Trump criticized Zelensky’s role in efforts to end the war and suggested Ukraine could be represented by someone else in negotiations.
Lawmakers Request Investigation
A bipartisan group of nine senators wrote to the Pentagon’s inspector general earlier this month requesting an investigation into “whether actions or decisions by the Department of Defense or its contractors contributed to these dangerous circumstances.”
The lawmakers included Republican Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, with Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire leading the group.
“Any restrictions on these capabilities, particularly without advance notification, raise serious questions about the Department of Defense’s contractual oversight and its responsibility to ensure continuity of essential services,” the senators wrote.
Representative Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said on October 18 that Congress needed to establish what happened to technology relied on by Ukraine for battlefield communications and drone operations.
“There needs to be an investigation. There needs to be a congressional investigation,” he told CBS News’ Face the Nation.
Newsweek reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Anthony Murray and Steve Mollman.
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