Starlink India: Musk blames ‘oligarchs’, and New Delhi calls it baseless

Elon Musk has accused “certain oligarchs” of keeping Starlink, his satellite internet service, out of India. Blocking it, he wrote on X, was “a crime against the people of India”, Al Jazeera reported. On Thursday he went further. “Starlink is licensed in over 165 countries and has spent five years complying” with Indian law, “so why still no licence? Is Ambani the real boss of India?” he posted, according to The Tribune.

Mukesh Ambani controls Reliance, which owns Jio, the country’s largest mobile operator. India’s Ministry of Communications answered on Thursday without naming Musk. Its process for licensing satellite services is “fair and non-discriminatory”, it said, and the suggestion that it was applied unfairly “is baseless and misconceived”.

Where Starlink stands in India

Starlink does hold a licence. Its Indian company received one for satellite communication services in June 2025, The Tribune noted. What it lacks is the final step. Three licensed satellite operators, Starlink among them, are at the same stage, the ministry said, and all three are going through a security assessment. Only after that can they apply for spectrum, the radio waves they need to run a service. Jio and Airtel, which Sunil Mittal controls, have both won early approval for satellite services of their own, Al Jazeera reported.

So by the government’s account, Starlink’s rivals are at the same stage. Musk’s case is that the wait itself protects them. Starlink has waited since 2022 to operate commercially in India. Jio and Airtel agreed last year to sell Starlink equipment alongside their own, Al Jazeera reported. That cooperation has since soured. The quarrel is old: Musk has clashed with Ambani and Mittal before over how India should hand out satellite spectrum.

Security is not a formality in this case. In 2024, Starlink devices turned up in a drug seizure in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and in an army operation in Manipur, Al Jazeera noted. Musk has said that Starlink’s beams were “turned off over India” and were “never on in the first place”. He now says that “Starlink will help the least-served in India”.

Who controls Indian telecoms

Two companies dominate the market Starlink wants to enter. Jio had 508.4m mobile subscribers at the end of August, and Airtel 491.6m, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Together that is 77% of India’s 1.29bn mobile connections, by our calculation from its figures. Vodafone Idea, the third, has 15%. In broadband Jio and Airtel hold 84%.

The gap Starlink hopes to fill is in the countryside. India has about 145 mobile connections for every 100 people in its cities, but only about 60 in rural areas, the regulator’s figures show. Satellite internet needs no towers or cables, which is why it suits places that phone networks have not reached.

Why India matters to SpaceX

Starlink had 12.0m subscribers at the end of June, twice as many as a year earlier, SpaceX reported, and its connectivity business earned $4.3bn in the second quarter. As we reported on 30 September, American telecom companies already feel its growth. India, with 1.29bn mobile connections, is a market where it cannot yet sell at all.

Public fights are a habit for Musk. Last week he said that the chief executive of Delta, the only one of America’s four big airlines not to use Starlink, “will lose his job” for choosing Amazon’s in-flight internet instead, Semafor reported. Tesla has also campaigned on social media against European regulators to win approval for its driver-assistance software, according to a Reuters investigation that Semafor cited.

What to watch next

The security assessment is the next gate for all three operators, and the government gave no date for its end. After that comes spectrum. If Jio’s satellite service gets its spectrum before Starlink does, Musk will say he was right. If all three move together, the ministry will say the same.