Musk's Starshield post reaches Tom Newton Dunn mid-show
On The Evening Edition, a reading of Elon Musk's post about US government control becomes an argument about who is responsible for Ukraine's lost connections.
Times Radio
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 188,540 views a day, 18 times a normal first day on this channel (10,287).
Musk Blames Trump For Limits On Ukrainian Military Capabilities | Tom Newton Dunn
Things we can learn from the video
Press to jump
- 0:40An excerpt from Piers Morgan's interview with Zelensky addresses strained US-Ukraine relations.
- 6:05Newton Dunn relays frontline reports of Donbas communications going dark after satellite throttling.
- 12:15Chris Colijn, reporting from Kyiv, says the military cannot launch the attacks it planned.
- 14:40Newton Dunn shares Mykhailo Fedorov's post on Starlink restoration, followed by a post from Musk.
- 15:15Musk's post says Starshield is US government-controlled and the limits were decided by US authorities.
- 16:45The panel examines Musk placing responsibility for the restrictions on US political decisions.
The news arrived on air. About a quarter of an hour into Kait Borsay's Evening Edition discussion, Tom Newton Dunn breaks off to read two fresh posts. The first is from Ukrainian official Mykhailo Fedorov, about Starlink service being restored. The second is from Elon Musk.
As Newton Dunn reads it, Musk's post says that "Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government," and that the limits were set by US authorities. Newton Dunn's reading of the post goes further than its wording. The description quotes his verdict: "Elon Musk is quite clearly trying to say here, look, this really wasn't my decision." The post names US authorities. The point about Donald Trump is Newton Dunn's interpretation.
The earlier part of the segment establishes the stakes. Newton Dunn, who writes The Times' War and Peace newsletter, describes frontline reports from the Donbas of communications going dark once satellite service was throttled. Chris Colijn joins by video link from Kyiv and says "the military are unable to launch quite the same attacks as they were planning." An excerpt from Piers Morgan's interview with Volodymyr Zelensky, on the strain between Kyiv and Washington, opens the program.
In its first eight hours the video drew close to 90,000 views, several times what a regular Times Radio upload usually gathers in a full day. The comment section also passed a typical first day's total well before the day was over. Much of the discussion there returns to one practical question: whether Europe needs a satellite system of its own.
Starlink ran through the channel's whole day. David Charter's interview on the disruption and former defense secretary John Hutton's call for more pressure on Vladimir Putin also started well ahead of the channel's usual pace, but neither drew as large an audience as the moment Musk's post was read on air.
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- Channel
- Times Radio
- Subscribers
- 1,310,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 6,692,849
- Channel views, pace per day
- 376,822 (on a normal day: 947,114)
- Video published
- October 14, 2026
- Video views so far
- 88,423 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 188,540
The numbers
The figures show a first day far beyond a typical Times Radio upload, on a day when several of the channel's Ukraine interviews also started quickly.
💡 Test your knowledge
Before joining Times Radio, Tom Newton Dunn was political editor of which British newspaper?
Newton Dunn served as The Sun's political editor before moving to Times Radio and The Times.