Elon Musk escalated his public fight with Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani over Starlink’s stalled Indian launch by posting screenshots of media reports about political donations and campaign work by Reliance-linked firms. The screenshots appeared on Musk’s X account while the India Mobile Congress, India’s annual telecom event, was under way in Delhi.
Key facts
- Musk’s post featured a 2022 report by Al Jazeera headlined “How a Reliance-funded firm boosts BJP’s campaigns on Facebook,” and an archived 2024 report by Indian daily The Indian Express, according to The Hindu.
- The Indian Express report said Qwik Supply, described as a Reliance-linked company, donated ₹385 crore (3.85 billion rupees) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling party, and ₹25 crore (250 million rupees) to the Shiv Sena, another Indian party, through electoral bonds.
- Reliance has not publicly responded to Musk’s allegations, all four outlets reported.
When the posts went up
The accounts disagree. Outlook India dates the screenshots to Friday evening, 9 October; The Hindu, the National Herald and Outlook Business all place them on Saturday, 10 October. Three of the four reports, including the two filed closest to the minister’s briefing, say Saturday, so that is the better-supported date, with the screenshots landing at the end of a run of posts that began on Thursday. Readers working from the Outlook India version should treat its Friday timing as the outlier rather than a separate second post.
Why a licence is not a live service
Three companies hold satellite communications licences in India — Musk’s Starlink, Reliance Jio’s satellite venture Jio Satcom and Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb — and none of them can begin selling satellite internet until the government assigns spectrum, Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said at the India Mobile Congress, according to The Hindu and Outlook Business. No company is serving paying customers yet, and the remaining steps sit with the government rather than with SpaceX, which runs the low-Earth-orbit network.
Revenue-based charging vs a spectrum auction
Revenue-based charging means an operator pays a recurring fee calculated as a share of the revenue it earns in India. A spectrum auction, the route India uses for mobile carriers, means bidding an upfront price for the airwaves. The government is settling on the first model for satellite operators, The Hindu reported; the share it intends to levy appears in none of the four reports.
What Musk posted
Hours before sharing the screenshots, Musk sarcastically addressed Ambani as “Prime Minister Ambani”, apologised for not realising the industrialist was “the real boss of India,” and asked whether he would nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete, Outlook Business reported. Outlook India separately reported a Thursday post in which Musk first asked whether Ambani was the “real boss of India.”
Musk has alleged that Starlink is being blocked by certain oligarchs seeking to “maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people,” according to The Hindu, a claim the four outlets reported in similar terms.
His case for access rests on coverage gaps. Musk said many areas of India have no internet at all, which denies children education and stops small businesses selling to a global market, and that Starlink would change their lives for the better, The Hindu reported. In a follow-up post minutes later he said Starlink had proved essential in saving lives during natural disasters worldwide when all other communication systems failed.
The National Herald added a caution the other reports do not: the material Musk shared deals with political funding and campaigning and does not, on its own, establish interference in Starlink’s approvals.
The government’s answer
Scindia said on Friday 9 October, at a briefing during the India Mobile Congress, that India does not permit monopolies in any sector, The Hindu reported. He said the Department of Telecommunications is technology-agnostic, that its job is to offer a bouquet of services, and that customers choose in a free market which service and which company they prefer. He also said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the sector regulator, and the telecom department are close to a final decision on satellite spectrum charges, with security clearance and spectrum the steps each operator must clear individually.
A contradiction in the record
In an earlier post quoted by The Hindu, Musk wrote that Starlink is licensed in over 165 countries and has spent five years complying with every law and requirement of the government of India, asking why there is still no licence. The National Herald pointed out that this claim sits at odds with the government’s own statement that Starlink already holds a satcom licence, with spectrum and security clearance the outstanding steps.
What it means for Starlink availability and price in India
Availability
No launch date appears in any of the four reports, and the order of the remaining steps is what determines when one can exist: TRAI and the telecom department settle the charging regime, spectrum is then assigned, and each licence holder separately clears security conditions and milestones. Every one of those decisions is a government action, which is why the donation reports Musk circulated — concerned with party funding and Facebook campaigning rather than spectrum policy — do not move the approval clock in either direction.
Price
Musk has signalled intent without numbers: Outlook Business lists a companion report headlined “Elon Musk Says Starlink Will Price India Plans Affordably To Take On Ambani’s Jio.” Because the pending framework would charge operators a share of their Indian revenue, the retail price of a Starlink plan in India depends on a percentage the government has not yet published. No Indian subscription, hardware or package price appears in this weekend’s reporting.
Political backdrop
The row has drawn in India’s opposition. Scindia hit out at the Congress party following an exchange on X between Musk and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, saying he did not think the party knew whether it was going left or right, The Hindu reported. The minister, a former Congress member, said the party had initially objected to a certain person getting a licence and now objects to him not getting one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Amazon’s Project Kuiper also launch satellite internet in India?
It can apply. Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said Amazon’s Project Kuiper has expressed interest in India and would have to follow the same established procedure as existing applicants, according to Outlook Business, which attributed the remarks to the PTI news agency.
What are electoral bonds?
Electoral bonds were an Indian financial instrument that let companies and individuals donate money to political parties. The Indian Express report Musk shared identified them as the route by which Qwik Supply’s donations to the BJP and the Shiv Sena were made, according to The Hindu.
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