Musk Promises Affordable Starlink in India, Taking Aim at Ambani's Jio

Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX and social media platform X, said on Saturday that his Starlink satellite internet service will be priced affordably in India. He made the promise as he continued to publicly clash with Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, whose company Reliance Jio is one of India's biggest telecom providers. The announcement came just days before Jio's parent company plans to launch India's largest-ever IPO, which is a process where a company sells shares of itself to the public for the first time. Musk said that if Starlink costs too much, nobody in India will buy it, so SpaceX has to keep prices low.

India is known for having some of the cheapest mobile data in the world. On average, people in India pay about 8 cents per gigabyte of data, which is far less than in many other countries. Musk has used a low-price strategy before in places like Kenya, where Starlink's arrival put pressure on local internet companies to lower their own prices. Now, Musk wants to try that same approach in India, one of the world's largest internet markets.

Musk has been posting a lot on X about his frustration with getting Starlink approved in India. He has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and Ambani of working together to block Starlink from entering the Indian market in order to protect Jio's business. In one post late Friday, Musk even called Ambani 'Prime Minister Ambani,' suggesting that Ambani has too much influence over the government. These remarks were seen as a direct and pointed attack on the Indian billionaire.

India's government pushed back against Musk's claims. Officials said there is no favoritism in how they approve new services, and that three satellite internet companies — including both Starlink and Jio's own satellite venture — are all still waiting for final security clearance before they can launch. In other words, the government says that Jio is not being given any special treatment either. Reliance, the company that owns Jio, did not make any public comment in response to Musk's remarks.

Musk's feud with Ambani marks a big change in how he talks about India. For a long time, Musk has been publicly friendly with Prime Minister Modi, and the two have met in person. But Musk now seems to believe that powerful business interests in India are standing in Starlink's way. Whether Starlink will eventually launch in India and at what price remains to be seen, but the rivalry between two of the world's richest men is heating up fast.

Jio Platforms, the company that owns Jio's telecom business, is aiming for a valuation of $106 billion in its upcoming IPO. That means investors would be buying shares based on the belief that the whole company is worth that much. Jio built its success by offering very cheap data plans when it launched years ago, which forced other phone companies in India to lower their prices too. Now, Musk says he plans to use that same playbook against Jio itself.