The Ministry of Defence has handed £16.6m to Elon Musk’s Starlink over the past four years, with much of the bill underwriting Britain’s military support for Ukraine and keeping deployed personnel connected to home.

Figures quietly released by the department show that, despite mounting political tensions between Labour and the world’s richest man, Whitehall has steadily deepened its commercial relationship with the SpaceX-owned satellite operator. A significant share of the spending has covered the purchase of Starlink terminals donated to Kyiv, where the kit has proved indispensable in maintaining uninterrupted high-speed connectivity along the front line.

The remainder has been routed towards welfare and communications provision for British troops stationed in remote theatres. Last year, sailors aboard the carrier HMS Prince of Wales were reported to be trialling Starlink to stream television and keep in touch with families during long deployments, a quality-of-life upgrade the MoD is keen to extend across the fleet.

Ukraine has received more than 50,000 Starlink terminals since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022. The hardware has reached Kyiv through a patchwork of direct donations from SpaceX, US military aid packages and contributions from allies, with Poland the most prominent European supplier. On the battlefield, the terminals have become a critical piece of infrastructure, powering drone operations and underpinning command-and-control communications in conditions where traditional networks have collapsed.

For all the headlines, the MoD’s outlay on Starlink remains a rounding error against the wider military space budget. The Armed Forces’ principal orbital communications are still carried by the dedicated Skynet constellation, which is in line for a £6bn upgrade programme over the coming decade.

Yet the figures will reignite debate in Westminster over Britain’s reliance on a single billionaire whose politics are sharply at odds with the Government’s. Mr Musk declared in 2024 that “civil war” in Britain was inevitable, and in September that year addressed a London rally convened by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, calling on those present to demand the “dissolution of Parliament”. The intervention drew a furious response from ministers, with Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, telling the Tesla founder to “get the hell out of our politics and our country”.

Relations deteriorated further earlier this year when Mr Musk’s X platform was rocked by revelations that its Grok chatbot had circulated thousands of non-consensual sexualised images of women. The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, described the images as “absolutely disgusting”, prompting X to disable the function. X and Grok have both sat under the SpaceX corporate umbrella since February, alongside Starlink itself — meaning every contract the MoD signs with the satellite arm ultimately flows back to the same parent group.

The numbers also expose how comprehensively Starlink has eclipsed its UK-backed rival. OneWeb, the satellite operator part-owned by the British taxpayer following its 2020 government-led rescue, has secured just £2m of MoD business since 2022, barely a tenth of the Musk haul. For an industry that ministers have repeatedly identified as strategically vital, the gulf raises uncomfortable questions about domestic capability and procurement strategy.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “Starlink technology is not used for military operations and is primarily used by our hard-working personnel to stay connected with their loved ones when they’re in areas without regular internet access, for example on a warship. As the public would rightly expect, all spending is rigorously checked to ensure it delivers value for taxpayers’ money and spend on Starlink has significantly reduced in the last year.”

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MOD hands Musk’s Starlink £16m as Ukraine support drives satellite spend