Submission Statement: 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 Ltd. and Mittal’s Bharti Airtel Ltd. have spent years building formidable positions in telecom.
India’s two biggest private telecom operators, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. and Bharti Airtel, together account for roughly 910 million broadband subscribers, more than 80% of the country’s market, according to the latest government data.
Bloomberg reported in June that India had effectively frozen final approvals for Starlink’s commercial launch due to security concerns. Security agencies under the country’s Home Ministry withheld clearances for the low-Earth orbit service to begin operations, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
Sunil Mittal's Bharti is one of the largest shareholders in Eutelsat Communications, operator of the Eutelsat OneWeb satellite network that’s one of Starlink’s biggest low-Earth orbit competitors worldwide. Airtel has separately partnered with SpaceX to offer Starlink to its Indian customers, an illustration of the complicated alliances emerging around the market.
Reliance has its own satellite ambitions through Jio Satellite Communications and its joint venture with Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES SA. Jio, OneWeb and Starlink are among the three companies that have received India’s satellite-communications licenses, although none has yet fully switched on commercial service.
Posted by DifficultBarber6969
2 Comments
!ping INDIA&EUROPE
Space tech has been the primary cornerstone of India-EU engagement.
[Eutelsat](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/eutelsat-talks-with-indias-space-agency-boost-satellite-launch-options-2026-03-31/) is heavily dependent on Indian launch infrastructure as recent launches were done by ISRO for the past few years now, and Indian ownership in both along with other European telco infrastructure such as British Telecom helped align the UK and EU into signing an FTA with India.
Both [Eutelsat](https://www.eutelsat.com/group/corporate-governance) and the [Reliance-SES JV](https://www.preqin.com/data/profile/asset/jio-space-technology-limited/469656) are functionally equally co-owned by India-France-UK and India-Luxembourg respectively. And even rising European players in SpaceTech like [Finland’s ICEYE are shifting production to India](https://thedefensepost.com/2026/08/25/iceye-establishes-india-office/).
This is something I think a lot of European Redditors didn’t realize when they talk about replacing Starlink with Eutelsat in Ukraine – they either face an American veto or an Indian veto.