Starlink’s Secret War: How Musk Is Powering a Covert Campaign Against Iran

 

By actively partnering with the U.S. government to smuggle communications hardware into Iran, Elon Musk is once again aiding Washington’s attempts at regime change. This fits into a long pattern of both American efforts to dislodge the government in Tehran and Musk’s close collaboration with the U.S. national security state, helping it to achieve its objectives around the world.

For decades, Washington has sought to overthrow the government in Tehran. Today, its most important ally in that effort may not be in the CIA or Pentagon, but in Silicon Valley.

Elon Musk, through his Starlink satellite system, is now helping to smuggle thousands of communication terminals into Iran, enabling opposition networks to evade government restrictions and coordinate in secret. His partnership with the U.S. national security state has made him a central figure in one of the most ambitious regime change campaigns in modern times.

It is no secret that Iran is in Washington’s crosshairs. And Elon Musk is aiding the attempt to depose the government in Tehran. In response to a post by a member of President Trump’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, Mark Levin, asking him to “put the final nail in the coffin of the Iranian regime by providing Starlink internet to the Iranian people,” the billionaire tech mogul recently announced that “the beams are on.”

After the Israeli bombardment began, Iran’s Communication Ministry placed heavy restrictions on online communication. This had the effect of hampering the ability of American and Israeli assets inside the country from communicating.

Starlink is an internet service allowing those with terminals to directly connect to thousands of SpaceX satellites in low Earth orbit. Terminals are, in effect, small, portable satellite dishes that can be set up anywhere and used by those in the near vicinity to skirt government restrictions on communication.

This is not the first time that Musk has used Starlink to sow chaos in Iran. In 2023, at the height of a U.S.-backed protest movement, the South African-born plutocrat responded to a statement to Secretary of State Antony Blinken announcing that the United States was taking action “to advance internet freedom and the free flow of information for the Iranian people…to counter the Iranian government’s censorship.”

“Activating Starlink,” Musk said. A few weeks after this pronouncement, Musk revealed that he was helping to smuggle hundreds of Starlinks into the country. “Approaching 100 Starlinks active in Iran,” he later noted.

The scale of the operation has been substantial, as only 18 months later, an estimated 20,000 clandestine Starlink devices are operating inside the country, helping a vast network of activists, spies, and other anti-government forces coordinate and communicate.  (more...)

Starlink’s Secret War: How Musk Is Powering a Covert Campaign Against Iran