Billionaires War… Musk and Ambani face off
After meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, Musk said he was extremely willing to deploy Starlink to help remote areas of India lacking internet services. However, Musk’s request did not go down well with the richest person in the country.
SpaceX owner Musk is facing stiff resistance from Mukesh Ambani, who runs Indian telecom giant Reliance Jio and is known as one of the richest people in Asia. Now two billionaires are locked in a war to provide satellite service in the world’s most populous country.
According to Deloitte; India’s market for satellite broadband services will grow by 36 percent annually to reach $1.9 billion by 2030. This makes India an extremely attractive market in this area, attracting the attention of names like Musk.
Mukesh Ambani, billionaire businessman, runs the Indian telecommunications giant Reliance Jio and is known as one of the richest people in Asia.
That’s why Starlink is pushing for licences, saying its satellite service is a natural resource that companies should share. However, Ambani’s company, Reliance, disagrees with Musk.
An industry source said the government would not accept requests for satellite services from foreign companies, Reuters reported. A second industry source says Reliance says opening the doors to established foreign players like Starlink without an auction will hurt Indian companies and create an uneven playing field.
Ambani’s Reliance Retail company previously had to compete with Amazon and lagged behind its US competitor in terms of e-commerce market share.
Notably, Musk’s request came while he was in talks with India to set up a Tesla factory.
Reliance Jio already has 439 million telecom users making it the market leader and has a 25 percent market share with 8 million cable broadband connections.