Iran to Venezuela and Ukraine: How Elon Musk's Starlink is now part of geopolitics

The world is an increasingly dangerous place.

Iran has been witnessing protest against the Islamic regime for weeks. Confusion continues to reign in Venezuela after the United States deposed long-time leader Nicolas Maduro. In Ukraine, the war against Russia continues to grind on. In all these places, Starlink, the satellite internet company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has emerged as a vital part of geopolitics.

Let’s take a closer look.

Protesters in Iran try to get the world watching

In Iran, Starlink Musk has been at the centre of protesters’ efforts at trying to topple the Islamic regime. One of the first things the Iranian regime did to damp down on the protests was to implement a near-total internet blackout. Authorities have taken down traditional fibre-optic and cellular networks to try to keep citizens in the dark.

However, according to sources, Starlink’s satellite-based service remains functional in some areas. One user in western Iran claims to know “dozens of people” using Starlink and that those in border towns remain largely unaffected. Iranians are leaning heavily on Starlink to share videos of growing protests and the regime’s escalating crackdown with the world. Internet monitor NetBlocks confirmed receiving reports of “patchy” but existing Starlink access.

This is because while normal broadband services use fibre optics or cell towers, the SpaceX-run firm uses low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to beam internet to users via radio waves. Ground stations send signals to its LEO satellites – of which it has thousands orbiting Earth – which in turn send the data back to Starlink users around the world.

More from Explainers

As Maduro eyes head-of-state immunity, Trump’s Venezuela policy may weaken his case — here’s how How misinformation is spreading after Maduro’s capture

However, there are now reports that the Iranian government is actively trying to jam the service. The country had banned Starlink after its Parliament passed a law in June in the aftermath of the war with Israel. It made use of Starlink punishable under the law anywhere from six months to two years in prison. In cases of espionage, it could result in the death penalty.

There are reports that Iranian leadership used a “kill switch” on Starlink satellites – likely using military-grade equipment provided by Russia or China. Initially, around 30 per cent of Starlink’s uplink and downlink traffic was disrupted. However, now that figure is over 80 per cent, as per Iran Wire. Authorities have begun a hunt for Starlink dishes, particularly in parts of western Tehran where protests are ongoing. Officials say this is part of an “electronic warfare” campaign against protesters.

Editor’s Picks

1

Will Elon Musk restore internet in Iran and intervene once again? 2

Grokipedia launched: Can Elon Musk’s AI-powered encyclopaedia compete with Wikipedia?

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump on Sunday said he plans to speak with Musk about restoring internet in Iran. “He’s very good at that kind of thing, he’s got a very good company,” Trump told reporters. Musk has supported providing Starlink to Iranians to help them circumvent the government’s restrictions, including amid previous protests in 2022. There are reports that state that around 40,000–50,000 people in Iran currently use Starlink.

In Venezuela, a source of information

Many Venezuelans had turned to the tech company at a time when confusion reigned about Nicolas Maduro and the United States’ operation against the long-time leader. This came as the country, which was struggling with connectivity issues prior to the attack, is facing a collapse of infrastructure.

More and more citizens had turned to Starlink to find out what was going on as the US conducted airstrikes on Caracas, causing power and internet access to go down.

Starlink has announced that it is providing free broadband service to people in Venezuela until 3 February 2026. This was announced by Starlink and shared by Elon Musk on social platforms as a gesture “in support of the people of Venezuela”. People are increasingly using Starlink for basic internet. However, this is limited to those who already have accounts with Starlink and have all the equipment.

A lifeline in Ukraine

In Ukraine, Starlink was activated days after Russia’s invasion. After repeated strikes from Russia on Ukraine’s communications and internet infrastructure, Starlink has proved to be a vital lifeline for the army and the government.

The country, till April 2025, had over 50,000 Starlink terminals, many of them being used to keep railways, schools and hospitals online in cases of Russian attack. The Ukrainian military remains dependent on Starlink to coordinate its efforts and tactics and its use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), with experts and techie volunteers on the front line repairing damaged equipment.

The importance of Starlink in the Ukraine war can be summed up by the fact that the country’s digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov told the Times that the technology is “the blood of our entire communication infrastructure now”.

Citizens, on the other hand, use Starlink to keep in touch with family, work, and keep up to date on the latest developments, particularly in frontline regions.

Reports last year said Musk was mulling over turning off Starlink in order to bring Ukraine to the table with Trump over a US $500 billion (₹45,095 billion) rare earths deal. Musk said at the time he would “never turn off [Starlink] terminals,” no matter how much he disagreed with Ukrainian policy and would never use them as “a bargaining chip”.

“There are obviously concerns about tech sovereignty because then you will only be depending on one provider, Starlink … but sovereignty at this point becomes a second priority … priority number one is winning the war,” Dario Garcia de Viedma, fellow of technology and digital policy at the Elcano Royal Institute think tank in Spain, told EuroNews. “Ukraine is definitely making sovereignty concessions to win the war and so is Europe”.

Experts sound alarm

However, not everyone is thrilled by these developments. Some in the United States government have noted the pitfalls of a private citizen like Musk controlling a system that could potentially affect the lives of hundreds of millions in countries around the world. A US defence official told The New Yorker, “Living in the world we live in, in which Elon runs this company and it is a private business under his control, we are living off his good graces.”

People in Britain too are taking notice. “Elon Musk’s current global dominance exemplifies the dangers of concentrated power in unregulated domains,” Martha Lane Fox, a member of Britain’s upper house of parliament and ex-board member of X, said during a debate. “Its control rests solely with Musk, allowing his whims to dictate access to vital infrastructure.”

This can have real-world implications.

For example, last July, Starlink systems used by Ukrainian military units were down for two and a half hours overnight as part of a global issue that disrupted the satellite internet provider. Oleksandr Dmitriev, the founder of OCHI, a Ukrainian system that centralises feeds from thousands of drone crews across the frontline, said the outage showed that relying on cloud services to command units and relay battlefield drone reconnaissance was a “huge risk”. “If connection to the internet is lost … the ability to conduct combat operations is practically gone,” he said, calling for a move towards local communication systems that are not reliant on the internet.

Musk in 2022 ordered a shutdown of Starlink during a pivotal Ukrainian offensive in Kherson, a strategic region north of the Black Sea that Ukraine was trying to reclaim, causing many on the ground to panic. There were reports that Musk was worried about what the Russians would do in response to the offensive, which ultimately failed. The aftermath of the development left many officials in Kyiv shaken.

Musk himself told the Financial Times that China had asked him to ensure none of its citizens get access to Starlink. To this day, the service remains inactive in China.

Till date, there remains no international legal framework about how such private orbital infrastructure can be used during wars. In today’s world, where information remains power, some of that is now owned by the world’s richest man.

With inputs from agencies