Elon Musk picked his newest fight, butting heads with India over its failure to greenlight Starlink

Elon Musk has picked his latest fight, losing patience with Indian authorities for withholding final approval for Starlink to offer commercial services.

The trillionaire issued scores of X posts in the last 24 hours complaining about the delays, and replied to many more supportive comments from followers on the issue. “Unfortunately, we are being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people,” he said on Wednesday. “This is a crime against the people of India!” Starlink first applied for licenses to operate commercially in India in 2022.

Although it received a license last year, it is still awaiting final approval.

Musk didn’t initially name the “oligarchs” he railed against, but telecoms services in India are largely dominated by two firms: Jio and Airtel.

The firms are run by Mukesh Ambani, the world’s 25th-wealthiest person, and fellow billionaire Sunil Mittal.

He later posted asking if “Ambani is the real boss of India?

Starlink is licensed in over 165 countries and has spent five years complying with every single law and requirement of the government of India, so why still no license?

Starlink signed partnerships with both Jio and Airtel last year, but they also appear to have their own satellite ambitions.

Jio is planning a constellation of 1,600 satellites in low Earth orbit, which would provide internet access in a similar way to Starlink.

However, Jio has yet to launch a satellite, and Musk’s service has a constellation of over 11,000 satellites, providing extensive coverage. “Starlink will be of great help to areas of India that have bad or no Internet and even no mobile coverage,” Musk said in one post on Thursday morning.

He then said those opposed to Starlink “hurt only the least served.” People who oppose @Starlink hurt only the least-served.

The wealthy or those living in large cities already have good Internet, so they don’t understand.

Jio launched 10 years ago and has become the world’s third-largest mobile network operator, winning plaudits for slashing the costs of high-speed mobile data.

Meanwhile, Airtel has partnered with Eutelsat — the French firm behind Eutelsat OneWeb, which competes with Starlink.

Airtel founder and chairman Mittal is also cochair of Eutelsat.

In a statement on Thursday, India’s Ministry of Communications said it had granted licenses to three unnamed satellite operators, all of whom are “required to demonstrate compliance with security conditions.” It added that its security assessment is underway and all three companies are “at broadly the same regulatory stage.” “As such, the suggestion that the framework or its application is unfair or discriminatory is baseless and misconceived.” In June, Bloomberg reported that regulators had frozen approvals for Starlink over fears that its terminals were being used during the Iran war despite the service not being licensed in Iran.

The office of India’s prime minister also said in a Thursday X post that it is essential to have “airtight and foolproof” security for telecom and digital technologies.