India Calls Musk's Oligarch Claim on Starlink Baseless and Says Three Satellite Firms Are at the Same Stage

BENGALURU, India — India on Thursday rejected Elon Musk's claim that unnamed oligarchs are blocking Starlink, and said three licensed satellite operators are at the same stage of a security review that must finish before any of them can ask for spectrum.

Musk wrote on X on Wednesday that Starlink was being blocked by "certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people." He did not name them. He called the alleged block a "crime against the people of India" and said the service could bring affordable high-speed internet to people who do not have it. He offered no evidence.

The Ministry of Communications answered without naming him. "A post is being circulated in social media regarding the fairness of India's regulatory framework for satellite communication services and suggesting that it is being applied in a discriminatory manner," the ministry said. "The Government has put in place a fair and non-discriminatory authorisation framework for all telecommunication services, including satellite communication services." It said demonstrating compliance with security norms is required of every satellite licensee. When that process is finished, a company may seek spectrum. "At present, all three entities are broadly at the same regulatory stage. As such, the suggestion that the framework or its application is unfair or discriminatory is baseless and misconceived."

The three licence holders are Starlink, Jio Satellite, and Eutelsat OneWeb. Reliance Jio, controlled by Mukesh Ambani, and Bharti Airtel, controlled by Sunil Mittal, dominate India's mobile market. OneWeb is the satellite venture associated with Airtel and Eutelsat. Jio and Airtel did not immediately comment. All three satellite applicants have early approvals and are waiting on security clearance and a spectrum assignment. The wait for Starlink has run about four to five years, through security questions and the argument over how satellite spectrum should be given out.

India has more than a billion internet subscriptions, almost all of them on mobile networks those two companies run. Satellite service is the piece that would reach places towers do not, and the piece that would compete with them where towers do. A licence is not a launch. Spectrum is the radio frequencies the satellites use. The ministry's point is that Starlink is not being held at a different gate from the Indian-backed applicants. Musk's point is that the gate has been shut long enough to count as a block, and that someone benefits from it staying shut.

SpaceX has signed commercial arrangements with Indian operators while the licence sat in review. Those deals have not produced a customer. A security assessment that applies to all three is the government's account of the delay. An oligarch unnamed, and a crime unnamed, is Musk's. The ministry did not identify the post it was answering. The post identified itself. Until one of the three clears the security step and is assigned spectrum, the commercial launch Musk has been promising in the world's largest internet market is still a filing, not a dish.