{"id":922562,"date":"2026-10-10T02:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T02:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/922562\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T02:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T02:58:11","slug":"musk-questions-ambanis-role-in-starlink-regulatory-holdup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/922562\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk Questions Ambani&#8217;s Role in Starlink Regulatory Holdup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk is picking a fight with India&#8217;s richest man \u2014 again.<\/p>\n<p>In the past few days, Musk has been criticizing regulatory approval delays for Starlink&#8217;s satellite-based internet in India, pointing the finger at &#8220;certain oligarchs&#8221; who want to maintain a telecom monopoly in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Musk didn&#8217;t name names in his X post on Wednesday. On Thursday, he called out <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/how-rich-mukesh-ambanis-india-2020-1\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mukesh Ambani<\/a>, the chairman of Reliance Industries, India&#8217;s largest conglomerate.<\/p>\n<p>Part of Reliance&#8217;s portfolio includes the country&#8217;s largest mobile network, Reliance Jio, which the company says has more than half a billion customers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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?&#8221; Musk wrote. &#8220;Is Ambani the real boss of India?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Spokespeople for Reliance Jio and India&#8217;s Ministry of Communications did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>Musk followed up on Friday with a sarcastic apology letter addressing Ambani as the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The actual prime minister of India is Narendra Modi, with whom Musk has had a largely cordial, if <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/tesla-ramps-up-hiring-in-india-decade-after-launching-preorders-2025-2\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">pragmatic, relationship<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                                  Want more Business Insider in your news feed?<\/p>\n<p class=\"preferred-sources-module-desc body-xs\">\n                                    Add BI in Google so our reporting is easier to find when you\u2019re searching for what matters.\n                                  <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/spacex-wins-fcc-approval-for-15-000-starlink-satellites-2026-10\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SpaceX&#8217;s Starlink<\/a> has run into issues with India&#8217;s government and Ambani&#8217;s Reliance before.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, Starlink began taking preorders in India before it had the proper licenses to sell an internet service, prompting the Ministry of Communications to advise the public &#8220;not to subscribe to Starlink services being advertised.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, Reliance lobbied India&#8217;s government to allocate satellite spectrum through an auction rather than an administrative assignment. Reliance lost that battle.<\/p>\n<p>In a bit of a twist, <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/india-richest-man-mukesh-ambani-elon-musk-starlink-big-boost-2025-3\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jio and Starlink<\/a> announced a conditional distribution partnership the following year, which would bring Starlink&#8217;s products into Jio&#8217;s retail and online stores, pending Starlink&#8217;s regulatory approval.<\/p>\n<p>Starlink received a key license from the country&#8217;s department of telecommunications around June last year, paving the way for Musk&#8217;s company to launch an internet service in India.<\/p>\n<p>India&#8217;s government, however, told The Indian Express that a security assessment for Starlink is still underway and needs to be completed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk is picking a fight with India&#8217;s richest man \u2014 again. In the past few days, Musk&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,1548,10829,438,4991,3120,3786,1209,18274,230199,43838,6895,490210,15542,30432,128,285,5707],"class_list":["post-922562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business-insider","tag-communications","tag-company","tag-country","tag-elon-musk","tag-government","tag-india","tag-license","tag-ministry","tag-mukesh-ambani","tag-prime-minister","tag-regulatory-approval-delay","tag-reliance-industries","tag-reliance-jio","tag-science","tag-space","tag-starlink"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}