Starlink suffers rare global outage, disrupting internet access worldwide; Elon Musk apologizes

For thousands of people around the world, the internet simply stopped working on Thursday(July 24), not because of local infrastructure issues or weather, but because Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, suffered a rare, global outage.

"Starlink is currently in a network outage and we are actively implementing a solution," the company said in a brief statement posted to X (formerly Twitter) around 4 pm ET.

Elon Musk followed up with a personal apology, writing, “Service will be restored shortly. SpaceX will remedy the root cause to ensure it doesn't happen again.”


The outage began at approximately 3:13 pm ET, and according to Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Kentik, Starlink's network experienced what he called a “total outage.”
“They’re not carrying any traffic right now,” Madory told Reuters. “This level of disruption is very unusual for Starlink; they haven’t had anything this widespread in a long time.”

Downdetector, a website that tracks internet service issues based on user reports, showed over 60,000 complaints globally by late afternoon.

Timing of the outage

The outage occurred just one day after T-Mobile rolled out its new Starlink-powered “T-Satellite” service, designed to enable phones to connect directly to satellites in areas with no traditional signal. While SpaceX hasn’t linked the outage to the rollout, the timing has drawn scrutiny.

Starlink did not immediately respond to requests for further comment. As of Thursday evening, some services appeared to be returning online in parts of the US and Europe, but full restoration may take time.

With more than 7,600 satellites in orbit and millions of users in over 70 countries, Starlink is one of the largest satellite internet providers in the world.