US military has reportedly been forced to accept higher Starlink costs to operate kamikaze drones
Elon Musk’s SpaceX pressured the Pentagon into paying higher rates for Starlink satellite connectivity used by US kamikaze drones during the Iran war, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
The dispute reportedly centered on the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS), a cheap loitering munition used by the US military. According to Reuters, SpaceX argued that the military had been paying about $5,000 for connection per terminal while effectively using a higher-tier service priced at $25,000 per month.
In March, Musk tweeted that the use of Starlink in weapon systems violated the company’s terms of service, adding that military operators should instead use Starshield, a separate network designed for government use.
It is a violation of commercial Starlink terms of service to use the terminal for weapon systems. This applies to all users and is shut down when discovered.
There is a separate network called Starshield, which is operated by the US government. This is not under SpaceX control.
In practice, however, the systems remain closely intertwined, with Starshield relying on the broader Starlink network of roughly 10,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites, according to Reuters.
While the Pentagon denied breaching its agreement with SpaceX, Reuters reported that company executives later pressed officials to pay higher rates for the service. The Pentagon ultimately agreed, nearly doubling the original $30,000 price tag for each LUCAS drone.
A Pentagon official told the outlet that the military is now looking for alternative suppliers. However, no rival can reportedly offer anything close to SpaceX in scale or capabilities. Competitors such as OneWeb and Amazon’s Project Kuiper remain far smaller or are still being rolled out.
SpaceX “certainly has the US government over the barrel,” Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters.
Some Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, have become increasingly uneasy about the leverage SpaceX presently holds over military operations, according to the outlet. Yet the Pentagon is reportedly considering purchasing more than 3,500 additional Starshield subscriptions in a deal that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for SpaceX ahead of its planned IPO next month.
The dependence has become especially sensitive amid the soaring cost of the Iran war. Analysts have estimated that the conflict was costing Washington hundreds of millions of dollars per day, with the first six days alone consuming roughly $12.7 billion, pushing the Pentagon towards cheaper, mass-produced weapons developed by newer defense firms.
