Musk Offers Free Starlink As Iran Protests Endure Internet, Comms Blackout
Now amid a days-long internet blackout which stretches to last week, Iranians are being offered free Starlink satellite service by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
"SpaceX has waived the Starlink subscription fee in Iran, so people with receivers in the country can access service without paying, according to Ahmad Ahmadian, executive director of the US group Holistic Resilience, which works with Iranians to secure Internet access," Bloomberg reports Tuesday."A person familiar with Starlink’s operations confirmed the free ser vice, while asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public," the report says further.
Word of this comes after earlier the same day President Trump encouraged Iranians to mount a coup and attack government buildings and institutions. In a serious escalation of his Iran rhetoric, Trump posted to Truth Social earlier, "To all Iranian patriots: keep protesting. Take over your institutions if possible. And save the names of the killers and the abusers that are abusing you."
What started as economically-driven protests in Tehran marketplaces last month threatens to become a full-blown insurgency targeting police and government buildings, amid some reports that over 100 security personnel have died.
Western press accounts have focused on the allegedly hundreds of protesters killed, with some highly dubious sources on Tuesday going so far as to claim 12,000 demonstrators have been killed.
But what hasn't been a focus is that semi-official Tasnim News Agency is claiming that at least 109 security personnel have lost their lives.
"The servicemen were martyred after swarms of violent rioters attacked them by firing bullets and hitting the law enforcement forces with various weapons," said the commander of the special forces General Masoud Mosaddeq, as quoted in the outlet.
Various external forces have tried to hijack the protests, amid Israel's Mossad also boasting its agents have infiltrated and are influencing events on the ground. So obviously, there's a raging info war of competing narratives - just like with the Syria and Libyan regime change wars before.
Starlink will supposedly help video from on the ground get out of the country, but such info could also be driven by foreign NGOs (or else foreign governments). The Wall Street Journal freshly reports:
With the government shutting down the internet and throttling phone services, Iranians are leaning heavily on Elon Musk’s Starlink service to share videos of growing protests and the regime’s escalating crackdown with the world.
But Iran has intensified efforts to jam the service, which is banned in the country, and users are being hunted.
Over the weekend, authorities began searching for and confiscating Starlink dishes in western Tehran, said Amir Rashidi, director of digital rights and security at Miaan Group, a U.S. nonprofit opposed to internet censorship.
“It’s electronic warfare,” Rashidi said. He said disruptions are worst in parts of Tehran where protests are taking place and in the evening, when the demonstrators gather.
The battle over information—while secondary to the confrontations taking place nightly in dozens of cities across Iran—has potentially serious consequences. President Trump has threatened to intervene in response to a crackdown by the regime.
But this can go the other way as well. Plenty of videos have surfaced which purport to show Iranian security officers being assassinated, beaten or stabbed by anti-government crowds.
Potomac, Maryland-based Clown Prince Reza Pahlavi has explicitly called for violent attacks on IRIB media facilities and its staff
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 13, 2026
He’s also called for targeting (read: killing) any government worker who does not quit their job and join the regime change riots https://t.co/5W9t4zP9WP
According to Iranian state news outlet Press TV, President Masoud Pezeshkian accused US and Israeli intelligence agencies of training armed units, with that training happening both inside and outside the country. If outside governments are directly aiding the agitators, it wouldn't be the first time that technique was used in an attempt to impose regime change on Iran. In 1953, US and British intelligence engineered a coup d'etat that ousted Iran's democratically-elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. "Operation Ajax" involved the use of CIA-funded Iranian agents and "rented" crowds of anti-government demonstrators.
Tehran is likely to seize on these reports of SpaceX offering free Starlink access and assistance, in order to further accuse the West of waging a covert campaign aimed at destabilizing the Iranian government. Well and this covert foreign-backed campaign is probably already in full swing.