Washington/Mumbai: Elon Musk has escalated his criticism of the regulatory hurdles facing Starlink in India, this time directly questioning the influence of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani. In a post on X, Musk said Starlink had spent five years complying with India's requirements and questioned why it still had not received final approval to begin commercial operations. He then asked: “Is Ambani the real boss of India?”
The post came a day after Musk accused unnamed “oligarchs” of blocking Starlink's entry into India to protect their market position. India’s Ministry of Communications rejected the allegation and said the satellite communications approval framework was fair and non-discriminatory. According to the government, Starlink, Jio and Airtel are broadly at the same regulatory stage and are undergoing security assessments before moving towards spectrum assignment. Starlink has already secured its GMPCS licence and IN-SPACe authorisation, but final approvals remain pending.
The dispute has also drawn Rahul Gandhi into the conversation. Responding to Musk's post, Gandhi wrote: “Welcome to India, Elon. Wait till you discover the other guy” The remark was widely interpreted as a reference to industrialist Gautam Adani, although Gandhi did not name him. Musk subsequently replied to Gandhi: “Thank you, Rahul. This is indeed troubling”
Meanwhile, The wider India-US technology relationship is also facing pressure over immigration. The Trump administration has recently suspended PERM green-card processing for major IT companies including Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL and Cognizant, while Indian IT firms have sharply cut new H-1B registrations amid higher costs and tighter scrutiny. Infosys, for example, saw its FY2027 H-1B registrations fall from 8,886 to 759, while TCS dropped from 5,955 to 284.