The US military has reportedly had to accept the high costs of Starlink to operate Kamikaze drones
Elon Musk’s SpaceX pressed the Pentagon to pay higher rates for Starlink satellite communications used by US kamikaze drones during the Iran war, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
The conflict reportedly centered on the Low Cost Unmanned Attack System (LUCAS), a cheap weapon used by the US military. According to Reuters, SpaceX said the military has been paying about $5,000 for each station connection while taking advantage of the $25,000-a-month premium service.
In March, Musk tweeted that the use of Starlink in weapons systems violated the company’s terms of service, adding that military operators should use Starshield, a separate network designed for government use.
It is a violation of Starlink’s commercial terms and conditions to use the terminal for weapon systems. This applies to all users and is disabled when detected. There is a separate network called Starshield, which is run by the US government. This is not under the control of SpaceX.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2026
In practice, however, the systems remain closely integrated, with Starshield relying on Starlink’s vast network of about 10,000 low-Earth orbit satellites, according to Reuters.
While the Pentagon refused to renege on its agreement with SpaceX, Reuters reported that company executives later pressured officials to pay higher rates for the service. The Pentagon eventually agreed, nearly doubling the original price of $30,000 per LUCAS drone.
A Pentagon official told the agency that the military is now looking for alternative suppliers. However, no rival can be reported to offer anything close to SpaceX in terms of scale or capability. Competitors such as OneWeb and Amazon’s Project Kuiper remain smaller or still in development.
SpaceX “Surely the US government is in charge of the barrel,” Clayton Swope, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters.
Some Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, have become increasingly concerned about SpaceX’s current role in military operations, according to the source. However, the Pentagon is reportedly considering buying more than 3,500 Starshield subscriptions in a deal that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for SpaceX ahead of its planned IPO next month.
That dependence has become particularly sensitive amid the rising cost of Iran’s war. Analysts have estimated that the conflict was costing Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a day, with the first six days alone costing about $12.7 billion, pushing the Pentagon toward cheaper, mass-produced weapons made by newer defense companies.
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