WASHINGTON — Top U.S. and Polish officials have been engaged in an online spat in recent days over the use of Elon Musk’s Starlink network in Ukraine amid the war with Russia after the billionaire, who is advising President Donald Trump, suggested the war-ravaged country couldn’t survive without it.
“I literally challenged [Russian President] Putin to one on one physical combat over Ukraine and my Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army,” Musk wrote in a post that sparked the dispute on his social media site, X. “Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.”
The post, which went on to call for peace in three-year-old war – something Trump has been demanding since his return to the White House – sparked Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, to hit back. In his own post on the X, Sikorski accused the SpaceX CEO of “threatening the victim of aggression” and suggested Poland could search for alternatives to Starlink, which has given satellite internet access to Ukraine and is critical to its war efforts.
“The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers,” the Polish foreign minister wrote.
He also noted that Poland pays for Starlink terminals in Ukraine to provide the connectivity, costing the Polish Digitization Ministry about $50 million per year.
Musk responded by telling the Polish foreign minister to “be quiet, small man” before going on to stress that he would never “do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip.”
“To be extremely clear, no matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals,” Musk wrote.
The online quarrel, however, also sparked Rubio to weigh in, with the top U.S. diplomat telling his Polish counterpart that he is “just making things up.”
“No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink,” Rubio wrote. “And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.”
Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, meanwhile, did not name anyone in particular but appeared to be referring to the dispute when he wrote “True leadership means respect for partners and allies,” in a post on X.
“Even for the smaller and weaker ones,” the Polish leader continued. “Never arrogance. Dear friends, think about it.”
Hanging over the online spat is the recently icy relations between the U.S. and Ukraine since Trump has retaken the White House, which reached a boiling point when an Oval Office meeting between the two nation’s leaders ended in shambles and put European leaders on edge.
Trump’s persistent criticisms of the NATO alliance, particularly other countries’ defense spending, and his willingness to tout his relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin have also made European leaders uneasy.
In recent days, however, tensions between the U.S. and Ukraine appear to have begun to thaw, with the two countries notching a significant development as a result of talks between top officials from both nations in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
