NEW DELHI: In the ongoing war of words over the ongoing satellite communication services in India by Starlink, Elon Musk has launched his shrillest ever attack on Mukesh Ambani.In a late night post on X, the Starlink boss said: “Dear Prime Minister Ambani, please accept my humble apologies for not realising that you are the real boss of India. Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete?”“There are many areas of India, as there are in all countries, with no Internet access, which denies children the opportunity for education and for small businesses the opportunity to sell their goods to a global market. Starlink would change their lives for the better. Also, Starlink has proven to be essential for saving lives during natural disasters throughout the world, when all other communications systems have failed, so you would also be helping save men, women and children throughout India,” Musk’s latest post said.The fresh expression of anger over the alleged delay in approving satellite communication services in India – something all the three licence holders, with the other two being Sunil Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio are facing – began Wednesday and he has been cranking the heat each passing day since then.On day one, he accused “certain oligarchs” of “blocking” Starlink’s entry to India without naming anyone but saying “you can guess who they are.” The second day, he followed up by naming Ambani and asking, “is Ambani the real boss of India.” And on day three, he said, “Dear Prime Minister Ambani.”Govt has denied the charges. Telecom minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said at the India Mobile Congress: “There is a lot of conversation about a particular party (Starlink). But there are three parties (Mittal, Jio and Musk) that have got licenses… We are very clear on our stand. As and when govt decides the charge system on revenue basis that spectrum will be assigned to them and as and when they individually fulfil security conditions, they can start operations.
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” Billionaire Jeff Bezos-led Amazon’s Project Kuiper is eyeing a licence to do so.“India does not allow monopoly in any sector, ” the minister said.“Govt is technology agnostic. Our job is to provide a bouquet of services. In a free market, it is upto the customers to choose which service they want to opt for and then which service provider with that service bouquet. Govt’s responsibility is to lay out a predictable regulatory architecture so that companies can make their capex decisions,” Scindia said.The minister further said that the Union govt is “close to taking the final decision with respect to (spectrum for satcom) pricing regime. TRAI has made some recommendations and the DoT is engaging with it on that”.