Elon Musk is publicly calling out India's richest man for using government influence to block Starlink from competing in the world's largest internet market — and Washington has nothing to say about it.
The stakes are straightforward: a billion-plus internet users in India, many underserved, and an American company with a proven satellite internet product being kept off the market while a domestic telecom monopoly gets protected. Musk has spent five years and jumped through every regulatory hoop New Delhi has set, only to watch the finish line keep moving.
On Thursday, Musk went after Mukesh Ambani directly on X. "Is Ambani the real boss of India?" he wrote. On Friday, he followed up with a sarcastic letter addressing Ambani as "Prime Minister": "Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete?"
Ambani's Reliance Industries controls Jio, India's largest mobile network with over half a billion customers. Reliance works directly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government on major projects. Musk's implication is clear: Ambani's empire and New Delhi are effectively intertwined, and that relationship is being weaponized to freeze out a competitor.
India's Ministry of Communications pushed back, calling the country's regulatory framework "fair and non-discriminatory" and insisting Starlink and two other licensed satellite operators are all undergoing security assessments at "broadly the same regulatory stage." But that claim deserves scrutiny. Starlink secured a key license from India's department of telecommunications around June of last year and even signed distribution agreements with Jio and Bharti Airtel. Yet commercial operations remain unauthorized. The security assessment — a conveniently open-ended process — is the latest hurdle.
This isn't the first time Ambani's Reliance has moved to box Starlink out. In 2024, Reliance lobbied hard to force satellite spectrum through an auction — a process that would favor deep-pocketed incumbents. New Delhi instead chose administrative allocation, Starlink's preferred route. Reliance lost that round. Now the delays continue through a different mechanism.
Business Insider framed the conflict as Musk "picking a fight" and emphasized his "pragmatic" relationship with Modi, soft-pedaling the structural advantage Ambani enjoys. TechCrunch noted Ambani's government partnerships but gave equal weight to the ministry's denial. Neither outlet asked the obvious question: why is an American company that's licensed in over 165 countries still waiting on one government's security review after half a decade?
Musk's Tesla has hit the same wall. Despite launching in India last year, Tesla registered just 699 vehicles in its first 12 months of deliveries, according to Electrek data cited by TechCrunch. Steep import duties pushed the Model Y's price to nearly double its U.S. cost. The pattern is consistent: India wants American brands on its shores — but only on terms that protect its domestic oligarchs.
No American official has raised a word of protest. The silence from Washington tells you everything about whose interests get priority when foreign governments rig the game against U.S. companies.
The open question is whether Musk's public pressure campaign can crack a system designed to protect itself — or whether Starlink joins the long list of American innovators told to wait at the door while the insiders cash in.
