Thousands of customers of Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service saw connections drop Monday morning, with outage-monitoring sites and social media showing reports from across North America, Europe and the Middle East. SpaceX, the company behind Starlink, acknowledged the disruption and said engineers were working to restore service, but provided few technical details.

“We are aware of a service disruption impacting a subset of customers and are working to restore connectivity as quickly as possible,” a SpaceX spokesperson said in a brief statement posted to the company’s X account. The company did not specify the number of affected users or what portion of the global network was involved.

Independent trackers recorded a sharp spike in complaints beginning early Monday. Downdetector showed several thousand reports at the outage’s peak, with posts from residential users, small businesses, and marine customers describing interrupted video calls, stalled point-of-sale systems and failed telemetry links. On X, the hashtag #Starlink trended as users posted screenshots and homegrown diagnostics.

For many customers in remote or rural areas, Starlink serves as a primary or backup internet connection. The outage temporarily stranded teleworkers, interrupted surveillance and monitoring systems used by farms and utilities, and left some maritime users reliant on alternative satellite providers. “We lost connectivity in the middle of a critical firmware update,” said one small-business owner who asked not to be named. “Switching to a cellular hotspot wasn’t an option here.”

Analysts say the episode is a reminder of the vulnerabilities that come with reliance on a single commercial provider for broad swaths of connectivity. “Commercial LEO constellations like Starlink have dramatically expanded internet access,” said a telecommunications analyst who requested anonymity. “But when a disruption occurs, the impacts can be widespread because the service is integrated into so many critical systems.”

SpaceX has steadily expanded the Starlink constellation in recent years, launching thousands of small low-Earth-orbit satellites to deliver low-latency broadband. The program has attracted customers from consumers to governments and has been used in conflict zones and disaster responses. That utility has also drawn regulatory attention as governments weigh how to ensure continuity for emergency communications and national-security applications.

SpaceX did not immediately link the outage to any specific technical cause. Possible culprits in past satellite outages have ranged from localized ground-station failures and software updates to routing errors and capacity bottlenecks, though company statements typically avoid early speculation. “Until engineers complete their investigation, it’s premature to pinpoint a cause,” the SpaceX spokesman said.

The disruption comes as lawmakers and regulators globally are increasingly focused on the resilience and oversight of commercial space-based services. Industry officials have argued that redundancy — through multiple providers and terrestrial backups — is the most practical mitigation, while some policymakers have pushed for mandatory reporting and contingency planning for providers serving critical infrastructure.

By late morning, some users reported partial restorations, but complaints remained active across multiple regions. SpaceX said it would provide updates as engineers learn more about the incident and urged customers to follow official channels for status information.