Elon Musk questions Ambani's influence as Starlink India launch stalls

“Is Ambani the real boss of India?” Elon Musk asked as he questioned why Starlink has yet to launch its satellite internet service in the country.

TL;DR

Elon Musk accused "oligarchs" of blocking Starlink's launch in India to maintain a "monopolistic chokehold" on the market.
The Indian Ministry of Communications stated its regulatory framework is fair and non-discriminatory, with Starlink undergoing security assessments.
Musk specifically questioned the influence of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani regarding the stalled launch.
Starlink has been trying to enter the Indian market for over five years and has yet to begin commercial services.
The company has partnered with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, but faces ongoing regulatory and spectrum allocation challenges.
SpaceX previously had to refund preorders in India in early 2022 after being told to stop rendering services before obtaining licenses.
India's decision to administratively allocate satellite spectrum, favored by Starlink, over auctions was a point of contention previously.

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Elon Musk

Dear Prime Minister Ambani,

Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India.

Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete?

There are many areas of India, as there are in all countries, with no Internet access, which denies children the opportunity for education and for small businesses the opportunity to sell their goods to a global market. Starlink would change their lives for the better.

Thank you 🙏

Elon Musk

Replying to @elonmusk

Also, Starlink has proven to be essential for saving lives during natural disasters throughout the world, when all other communications systems have failed, so you would also be helping save men, women and children throughout India. 🇮

Elon Musk

Yes

Elon Musk reposted

DogeDesigner

BREAKING: Elon Musk takes aim at Mukesh Ambani, calling him “Prime Minister Ambani” and asking him to let Starlink compete in India.

Starlink could help children access education, connect small businesses to global markets and save lives when disasters knock out other networks.

Elon is right to speak up. He has helped build technology that could change lives in communities still waiting for reliable internet. His argument deserves support: more opportunity for children, more customers for businesses and a lifeline for families during emergencies.

India should welcome that ambition. Let Starlink compete, give Indians more choice and let consumers decide.

Elon Musk reposted

David Keyes

.@Starlink will revolutionize India, particularly rural areas with no internet. So I made a petition just for Indian villagers who currently have NO INTERNET to show how much they want and need Starlink.

https://t.co/Ah5Q67jf0o https://t.co/mGDwg9j8Qv

Elon Musk reposted

Rothmus 🏴

Ambani runs India’s internet policy.

When Starlink won the telecom license and space approval last year, the government still refused to let it sell a single subscription.

Before that, Jio lobbied hard to force an auction that would slow any outsider. And after 4 years of paperwork, Musk called out the oligarch and asked if Ambani is the real boss of India.

The ministry insists the process is fair and that no monopolies are allowed, yet the world’s biggest telecom still blocks the only system that can reach the villages its own towers will never cover.

Starlink already serves Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan. India remains closed.

Elon Musk

The ridiculous arguments by Ambani’s army of Internet shills make no sense

On the one hand, they say Starlink couldn’t possibly compete with the amazing low prices offered by Ambani’s de facto monopoly in India and then, in the same breath, they essentially claim that Starlink would be too strong of a competitor! This is absurd hypocrisy and hyperbole.

The reality is that competition would greatly benefit the average citizen in India by giving them more choices, as it always does. Ambani’s profits will be lower, but he is not going out of business. And, obviously, if Starlink is too expensive in India, no one will buy it, so SpaceX will need to make pricing affordable.

Elon Musk reposted

DogeDesigner

BREAKING: Elon Musk just dismantled the “Starlink will be unaffordable in India” narrative pushed by Ambani’s internet shills. He confirmed that SpaceX will make pricing affordable for Indian consumers.

It’s high time Indian customers had more options and the freedom to choose the service that works best for them. Starlink deserves a fair chance to compete in India.

Healthy competition benefits consumers by pushing providers to offer better prices, better service and better connectivity.

Elon is right to push for more choice. Let Starlink compete. Let Indians decide.

Elon Musk reposted

DogeDesigner

Nearly one in three Indian schools lacked internet access in the 2025–26 academic year.

The Education Ministry’s UDISE+ report recorded internet facilities in 67.4% of schools. It lists 14,66,682 schools nationwide, with internet available in 9,89,191. That leaves 4,77,491 schools without it.

Starlink could help connect remote schools and give teachers and students access to more learning resources. A child’s opportunities should not depend on whether a broadband cable reaches their classroom.

Starlink has already connected more than 6 million students worldwide. This is another powerful reason to support Starlink in India.

Elon Musk reposted

SMX 🇺🇸

Dear Prime Minister Ambani,

Please welcome Starlink into the Indian market. Starlink will not put you out of telecom business. The great people of India deserve options when it comes to internet services and the freedom to choose whichever provider best meets their needs.

Competition is not a threat. It drives innovation, improves services, and ultimately benefits the people of India.

There is room for everyone to compete and succeed.

We can all compete TOGETHER

Elon Musk reposted

X Freeze

Jio and Airtel literally dominate the Indian mobile market

TRAI's August 2026 data shows that just these two companies control more than 77% of India's mobile subscriptions

Aircel, Telenor, Tata Docomo, Videocon, MTS, Reliance Communications and Loop have all disappeared as independent mobile operators

Vodafone and Idea had to merge just to survive

What's left is a market where two companies have enormous influence over pricing, coverage and service for hundreds of millions of Indians

And now, when Starlink wants to bring another internet coverage to India where people don't really have, some stupid people sitting comfortably in cities with high-speed internet are saying, “We don't want Starlink”

Who are you to make that decision for everyone else?

Just because you have reliable internet doesn't mean millions of Indians living in rural and remote areas have the same luxury

How can you sit in a city with fast internet and decide that people in remote villages shouldn't even have that choice?

If you don't want Starlink, don't buy it. Nobody is forcing you

But don't be stupid enough to think your personal preference should decide what the rest of India gets to use

As Elon said to Ambani:

"Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India"

Real competition puts pressure on pricing, improves consumer choice and creates opportunities to connect places that existing networks still struggle to reach

India deserves more choices

Let Indians decide 🇮🇳

Elon Musk reposted

Ian Miles

Starlink has an Indian license, 20 ground stations on Indian soil, and a promise to keep Indian user data in India. What it doesn't have is permission to switch on.

Thousands of Indian villages still have no 4G. In the Northeast alone, more than 1,800 had no mobile signal of any kind as of February, most of them in Arunachal Pradesh. These are the places satellite internet is built for: mountain villages, islands, flood zones, anywhere a tower or a fiber line takes years and a lot of money to arrive.

Starlink has done what India asked. It got its telecom license in June 2025 and space regulator approval a month later. It built India-specific security controls, agreed to keep data local, and has been reporting the names, addresses and coordinates of its test terminals to the government every two weeks. It operates in more than 150 countries. In India it still can't sell a single subscription, and the company is now talking about early 2027.

New Delhi says nobody is being singled out, since Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio's satellite venture are stuck at the same stage. I believe that, and I don't think it helps. When three licensed operators, two of them backed by India's biggest telecom groups, can't clear security review after more than a year of trials, that tells you the process has no deadline. It doesn't tell you it's thorough.

The security concerns are real. Indian agencies have been rattled by smuggled terminals turning up in border areas, and India is entitled to lawful interception, local data storage and an emergency shutoff. Starlink has already signed up for all of it. The answer to a misused terminal is enforcement, not keeping the service dark for everyone who would use it legally.

Elon Musk has been blunt, calling the delay "a crime against the people of India" and asking, "Is Ambani the real boss of India?" You don't need to buy the whole oligarch theory to see his point. Reliance spent months lobbying for spectrum auctions that would have favored deep-pocketed incumbents. The government sided with Starlink on that one, which is to its credit. Now it needs to finish the job.

India can keep every security power it wants and still let a kid in Arunachal get online. Right now it's choosing not to.