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Starlink satellite destruction routine maneuver, not election fraud cover-up | Fact check

Nate Trela   Paste BN
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The claim: SpaceX blew up a Starlink satellite to cover up election rigging

A Nov. 10 Threads post (direct link, archive link) claims SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladmir Putin conspired to rig the 2024 presidential election.

“Trump cheats at everything in life,” the post reads. “Putin interfered in past 3 elections. Musk & Trump talk to Putin a lot. Musk's Starlink uploaded votes in swing states. Swing state voters went Dem down-ballot but Trump at the top? Unikely (sic). Starlink satellites exploding, destroying evidence.”

The post was reposted more than 300 times in four days.

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Our rating: False

There is no evidence that any votes were "uploaded," that the election was rigged or that a SpaceX satellite was destroyed as part of a cover-up. SpaceX routinely destroys satellites before they become uncontrollable, and voting machines in swing states weren't connected to the internet.

No evidence of election fraud, officials say

After Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 6, both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris publicly accepted the election results and called for a peaceful transition of power. Despite this, not everyone is convinced the election was legitimate.

But the idea that Musk rigged the election or blew up a satellite to cover up election interference is baseless.

Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in a Nov. 6 statement that there was “no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.”

And it is unclear how Starlink, Musk's satellite-based internet service company, could be used to rig an election. The seven battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – all have laws or policies that bar voting equipment from being connected to the internet during voting, if at all.

Dominion Voting Systems, a frequent target of misinformation, says its machines are designed to not be connected to the internet.

Starlink is occasionally used for administrative tasks at polling places in areas without reliable broadband connections. One of the more common uses is providing connectivity for the electronic poll books that serve as a registry of voters. Unofficial election results can sometimes be transmitted over private networks, but nearly every ballot will have a paper record that can be used to verify election results, according to The Associated Press.

A Starlink satellite was seen breaking up over the western U.S. on Nov. 10, but there is no evidence the satellite was destroyed to cover anything up. SpaceX routinely "steers satellites into the atmosphere to destroy those that are "identified to be at an elevated risk of becoming non-maneuverable." More than 600 Starlink satellites have been destroyed since 2019, either falling out of orbit on their own or being intentionally taken out of commission, according to a tracker maintained by astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Fact check: Viral claim CBS News accused Donald Trump of cheating is baseless

The post’s other claims are also largely based on conjecture and lack context.

For example, the claim of Russian attempts to interfere in elections is accurate, according to intelligence agencies. Federal investigations have shown attempts by Russia to interfere with the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, but those efforts appear to have been focused on shaping voter behavior through Election Day bomb threats and the spread of misinformation and hacked materials. None of the reviews cited an effort to alter the results from the votes that were cast.

It's unclear how often, if at all, Trump talks with Putin. Journalist Bob Woodward claims Trump spoke with Putin as many as seven times after leaving office, citing an anonymous Trump aide. But both Trump's campaign and the Kremlin have denied this claim, according to Reuters.

The Wall Street Journal reported in October that Musk was in “regular contact” with Putin in recent years. Musk said he only had one call with Putin but ridiculed the suggestion he was supporting Russia in a post on X, while the Kremlin confirmed just one call between the men, according to the report.

And the post’s focus on split-ticket voting as proof of fraud is baseless, as there is nothing inherently suspicious about it. The U.S. has a long-documented history of ticket-splitting, though it has become less common in recent years as the country has become more polarized. Democratic candidates distancing themselves from some of the unpopular positions of Biden and Harris and a lack of enthusiasm for down-ballot Republicans in some races contributed to Democrats winning four Senate seats and a governorship in states Trump won on election night, Paste BN reported.

Paste BN could not reach the social media user sharing the claim for comment.

PolitiFact and Lead Stories also debunked versions of this claim.

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This story was updated to add new information.

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