Elon Musk accused unnamed rivals of blocking SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband network in India, an apparent swipe at billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal.
SpaceX has been awaiting approval from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to offer Starlink service in India, where companies controlled by Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Mittal’s Bharti Airtel have spent years building formidable positions in telecoms.
“Unfortunately, we are being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people,” Musk said on social media. “You can guess who they are …”
India’s two biggest private telecoms operators, Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel, together account for roughly 910 million broadband subscribers, more than 80 per cent of the country’s market, according to the latest government data.