Poland’s ministers should choose their words carefully when engaging with foreign figures online, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on 10 March, following a heated social media spat between Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and President Donald Trump’s billionaire associate Elon Musk.

The row erupted over Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet system, which is crucial to Ukraine’s war effort against Russian aggression. Sikorski suggested Musk was toying with the idea of cutting off access, despite Poland paying around $50mn annually in subscription fees as part of the West’s allied support to Ukraine.

The US has recently stopped military aid to Ukraine and suspended sharing of intelligence data with the Ukrainians, hampering Kyiv’s operability along the war’s multiple fronts. 

”The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers," Sikorski wrote in a post on X, which Musk owns.

Musk fired back dismissively. "Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink," the tech mogul wrote on his platform. Musk later denied ever considering a shutdown.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded in, accusing Sikorski of "just making things up.” 

"Say thank you, because without Starlink, Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now," Rubio said on X.

Sikorski struck a more diplomatic tone in response. "Thank you, Marco, for confirming that the brave soldiers of Ukraine can count on the vital internet service provided jointly by US and Poland. Together, Europe and the United States can help to achieve a just peace.”

The US push to end the war has been met with scepticism in Poland and across Europe. Trump’s pressure on Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, coupled with a conciliatory stance towards Russian President Vladimir Putin, has deepened fears that Washington is pursuing a deal with Moscow while sidelining Ukraine and its European allies. 

Poland and Europe do not view that as a “just peace,” Sikorski referred to. So far, there has been no Russian response to the proposed 30-day ceasefire that the US and Ukraine tabled following talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 11.

Warsaw is wary that handing Russia a pause in the fighting without forcing it to any concessions is only giving the Kremlin time to regroup and renew war in Ukraine – and possibly against Baltic States or even Poland, which are all Nato members.

"While defending Poland’s dignity and national interests, we must always act with common sense and moderation, avoiding unnecessary international disputes – there are enough of those already, and not of our making," Tusk said ahead of the weekly sitting of his government.

Asked if he would say the same thing again, Sikorski told journalists: "Of course." 

Musk later amplified a post from a Polish right-wing activist linking Sikorski to George Soros, replying: "Yes, [Sikorski] is a Soros puppet." 

The controversy comes as Poland’s presidential campaign heats up, with opposition figures quick to take sides. PiS's former Health Minister Katarzyna Sójka thanked Musk for his put-down, while the party's ex-deputy foreign minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk apologised to him on Sikorski’s behalf. PiS MEP Dominik Tarczyński called for Sikorski’s resignation.

PiS – which cheered on Trump after his victory in the election last year – continues to see him as a guiding figure in their plan to retake power from the Tusk-led coalition in Poland’s presidential vote due in May and June and in the parliamentary election in 2027.

But Trump’s apparently pro-Russian stance has made PiS uneasy to the point that the party’s officials are now accusing Tusk and his ministers for trying to drive a wedge between Europe and the US.

“[According to PiS,] Sikorski’s clash with Musk is part of a sinister German plot to drive a wedge between Europe and the US,” Witold Jurasz, a Polish political commentator and a former diplomat wrote for Onet, a Polish news website.

“But given that it is Trump who is confronting Europe, not the other way around, this suggests either extreme cynicism on the part of PiS politicians – who apparently believe their voters have no grasp of geopolitics – or sheer stupidity,” Jurasz also wrote.