Elon Musk has accused unnamed Indian business rivals of obstructing SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband service, alleging they are seeking to protect their dominance of India’s telecommunications market.
“Unfortunately, we are being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people,” Musk said in a post on X. “You can guess who they are …”
His comments appeared to point to billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Bharti Airtel, both of which hold major positions in India’s telecoms sector.
Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel together account for about 910 million broadband subscribers, representing more than 80 percent of the Indian market, according to the latest Indian government data.
Starlink has obtained a satellite communications licence in India but has yet to receive all the approvals required to begin commercial operations.
The company is awaiting security clearances and spectrum, the radio frequencies used to transmit communications.
According to reports, security agencies under India’s home ministry had withheld clearances for Starlink’s low-Earth orbit service over security concerns.
Low-Earth orbit satellites operate relatively close to Earth and are used by Starlink to provide broadband connectivity.
Speaking at an industry conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, Lauren Dreyer, Starlink’s vice-president of business operations, said the company had spent five years working with Indian regulators and designed its network around the country’s security requirements.
She said Starlink had “controls at every layer” and that Indian user data would be kept within India.
“We’re standing ready to serve India once India is ready,” Dreyer added.
