{"id":667063,"date":"2026-05-27T00:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T00:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/667063\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T00:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T00:54:12","slug":"musk-says-us-military-suicide-drones-used-starlink-in-violation-of-spacex-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/667063\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk says US military suicide drones used Starlink in violation of SpaceX rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX and the Pentagon have been bickering about the price of using Starshield satellite service during the Iran war, according to a Reuters report<\/a> published today. It appears that SpaceX asked the military for more money after it started using satellite terminals on \u201ckamikaze\u201d attack drones<\/a> in Iran.<\/p>\n

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claimed the Reuters report is wrong. But Musk also said the military drones initially used the commercial Starlink service instead of the government-specific network, in violation of Starlink\u2019s terms of service. Musk blamed the violation on the contractor that built the drones for the government.<\/p>\n

The Reuters report, based on Pentagon documents and interviews with sources familiar with the pricing talks, said that SpaceX recently asked the military to pay $25,000 for Starshield access on each kamikaze drone. The Pentagon, which previously paid $5,000 for each connection, objected to the price hike but ultimately agreed to pay it, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n

While the $25,000 charge is a monthly fee for the satellite connection provided to a satellite terminal, the terminals are being used with drones that only make one-way trips<\/a> before hitting targets and detonating on impact.<\/p>\n

Starshield is a network for government entities and is based on Starlink technology. Musk wrote in an X post<\/a> today that the \u201cReuters article is false.\u201d But in the very same post, he seemed to confirm a dispute over how the military used SpaceX satellite technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey made improper use of the Starlink civilian system for military purposes. Direct violation of terms of service,\u201d Musk wrote today, seeming to indicate that the military used the commercial Starlink system when it should have been using Starshield.<\/p>\n

Musk said later that the drones were configured incorrectly by a military contractor. \u201cThere is a US government arm of SpaceX called Starshield, which has a different set of satellites than Starlink, which is for civilian use. The company that makes the suicide drones incorrectly used the civilian system, instead of the Starshield,\u201d Musk wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX and the Pentagon have been bickering about the price of using Starshield satellite service during the Iran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-667063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}