Musk Ordered Starlink Slowdown for Ukraine, WSJ Reports; Rubio Denies US Involvement

Nathan Hager introduced the lead story: Elon Musk reportedly ordered a slowdown of the Starlink satellite technology used to defend Ukraine. The report came from the Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed American officials.

According to the report, Musk restricted the speed of Ukraine's access to the Starlink system. That restriction hampered the ability of the country's drones to carry out defensive and offensive missions.

Bloomberg's Oliver Crook said the report raised questions that were not yet fully answered: whether the service was actually reduced, and whose decision it was. He noted that Ukraine was not warned in advance, and that the problem surfaced on the battlefield before Ukrainians went public. The Journal's reporting suggests the decision was made consciously and deliberately by Musk, according to several people it spoke to. The Journal also reports that Musk discussed the Starlink decision with President Donald Trump after the shortfall became publicly known.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration had nothing to do with the slowdown. Speaking to reporters during a visit to India, he said Ukraine would not exist without American support.

Rubio rejected reports that the US government had denied Ukraine something it needed to defend its country, saying, "That's not true. That's not accurate." He also questioned a Ukrainian official's claim that people had died as a result of what America was denying them, saying he did not know who that official was. He added that no country had done more to help Ukraine over the last four and a half years than the United States, including under the Trump administration. Rubio said the US cannot control what a private company does with its product.

Hager reported that negotiations on the war had shifted to Russia, where US envoy Steve Witkoff has reportedly begun talks with President Vladimir Putin, according to Russia's Interfax News Agency.

The visit came a day after Witkoff met Zelenskiy and some European leaders in Oslo, Norway. The meeting suggested leaders are keen to bring momentum to peace efforts more than four and a half years after Russia's army invaded Ukraine.

Karen Moscow noted that the election was just 13 days away. The previous night, President Trump headlined a campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, to support Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley and criticize his Democratic opponent, former Governor Roy Cooper. Trump called Cooper a liberal and used other harsh terms in his remarks.

Trump spent much of the speech focused on crime and repeated his prediction that gas prices would come down once the Iran war is over. According to Federal Election Commission filings, Trump's super PAC spent $277 million from September through the first two weeks of October. The president's committees have spent at least a million dollars on eight Senate races, including North Carolina's.

The hosts also noted that Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, contributed about $80 million in September and October to help Democrats in the midterms.

Bloomberg's Amy Morris reported from Washington that Democrats were pushing campaign targets deeper into Republican territory, with their House campaign arm expanding its red-to-blue district list to include seats not usually considered competitive. Pre-election polls increasingly pointed to significant Democratic gains.

Jim Msina, Barack Obama's former campaign manager, said that the numbers he cares about most are early vote numbers, where Democrats have a 15-point lead in party identification. He said he also watches enthusiasm closely. He added that Republicans still hold some structural advantages, including redistricting and huge campaign coffers in Washington.

Democratic Senate and House campaign committees are suing President Trump and the Justice Department, which they describe as a coordinated effort to erode confidence in the vote. They are asking a judge to block the administration from forcing states such as California and Nevada to set aside tens of thousands of mail-in ballots until voters' citizenship status can be verified.

Hager's summary of the context noted that the Justice Department sued California last week for refusing to join its effort to remove suspected non-citizens from the state's voter rolls. A day before the new lawsuit, federal agents arrested 11 non-citizens in California and charged them with fraudulently registering to vote.

Karen Moscow said President Trump's approval rating had hit a new low, two weeks before the midterms. A New York Times/Siena poll found that just 36% of likely voters approved of Trump's performance, while 59% disapproved.

Bloomberg News learned that trade negotiators had reached an impasse over steel and aluminum tariffs. Sources said talks cooled in recent days after US officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, took issue with Mexican demands for reduced tariffs on metals.

Lutnik had tried to exert more influence on the talks after taking a back seat to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. The standstill may mean major progress with Mexico will have to wait until after the midterm elections.

Futures were mixed that morning following better-than-expected earnings from SpaceX, and SpaceX stock rose about 9.5% in early trading. Musk is pushing to combine SpaceX and Tesla in what would be the biggest merger of all time, and he discussed the idea on the SpaceX earnings call.

On that call, Musk said, "I do think there's a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the super intelligence singularity. And there's a lot to be gained from cooperating on developing super intelligence software." A merged company would span electric vehicles, energy storage batteries, rockets, and satellites.

Citadel founder Ken Griffin, speaking to Bloomberg's Danny Burgerer in New York, said there are almost certainly bubbles within the current moment, and that any radical transformation of the economy is generally intertwined with a bubble. He recalled the 1999–2000 period, when the metrics used to value internet companies were fanciful, and said he wished he had kept his Amazon stock from that time.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic could spend about $750 billion on computing power.

Former Disney CEO Bob Iger's latest book is scheduled for release in March. It covers his second tenure leading the entertainment giant, from 2022 to 2026. Iger returned to lead Disney after the ouster of his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek, whose own book came out in September.

Bloomberg's Matt Piper reported that the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has unveiled a proposal to require companies to tell people when they are interacting with AI. The proposal covers all automated systems, including rules-based chatbots and AI that handle customer service calls.

It would also require a one-touch option to connect callers with a real person. Companies that violate the rule would face potential restitution and civil penalties starting at $525 per violation. A hearing on the proposal is set for November 19.

Hager said talks on ending the war continued in Russia a day after Witkoff met Zelenskiy in Norway. He reported the WSJ story that Musk ordered the slowdown of Starlink service that blindsided Ukraine's military, and noted that Rubio said US intelligence-sharing policy with Kyiv had not changed. Rubio said, "If it were not for the assistance of the United States, including under the Trump administration, there would be no Ukraine right now. Ukraine as a sovereign state would not exist."

Bloomberg's chief Europe correspondent Oliver Crook, reporting from Brussels, said Ukrainians had earlier publicly said Starlink connectivity had been reduced, and that Starlink is the main lifeline for them and something Europeans are in no position to replace. He said the Ukrainians remained totally dependent on the United States for it. Musk had said on Twitter that he was not the one who made the decision, while the WSJ reporting says the decision did come from him, and the sources give some conflicting details. One source reportedly described a prior conversation with senior Trump administration officials and possibly Trump himself.

Crook said there is a huge amount of opacity, and that further reporting is needed. He noted that Ukrainian lives depend on the ability to shoot things out of the sky, and that the capacity is also needed to preserve the front lines. He also said Musk has been part of the pressure campaign on Ukraine, including posting on X that Zelenskiy should step aside.

Crook said the WSJ reporting cites conflicting details from different sources. One source suggested the decision may have been something Musk did on his own, while another suggested it followed a conversation with senior officials in the Trump administration and potentially Trump himself. Crook asked what personal interest Musk himself would have in reducing the capacity of the Ukrainian military, and said more reporting was needed.

Crook said that despite the harsh rhetoric of recent days, including comments from Rubio earlier in India, Zelenskiy appeared to have calmed down and adopted a more positive tone. He reportedly spoke with Rubio by phone. Discussions in Norway the previous day involved Steve Witkoff, Zelenskiy and several European leaders, and Ukraine's tone was more conciliatory.

Witkoff was in St. Petersburg that day to meet Vladimir Putin, and Crook said the outcome would have to be seen. He said Ukraine and Europe hope the tensions are part of pressure from the Trump administration ahead of the midterms, given the administration's concern over the cost of living, diesel and gas, but he stressed there is no guarantee of that.

Asked whether European leaders are concerned about their own Starlink access, Crook said he did not think there was concern at that level yet. He said officials he had spoken to pointed out that Europeans had shouldered a huge financial burden for Ukraine, but do not have sophisticated systems such as the Patriot system. He said the main point he hears from all of them is how fundamentally dependent Ukraine is on Starlink and that there is no alternative in Europe.

Crook linked the story to unrest on the streets of France. He said the leading candidate, Marine Le Pen, wants to withdraw support from Ukraine. France and Germany are the two major pillars still holding up Ukraine, and if Le Pen is elected president, Ukrainians are intensely nervous about it.