Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has said he would price his Starlink satellite internet service affordably in India to take on Mukesh Ambani’s low-cost Reliance Jio, escalating his attacks on the rival tycoon days before Jio’s parent launches the country’s largest-ever initial public offering.
Jio Platforms, which owns the telecom arm, is targeting a valuation of $106bn in the offering. Much like SpaceX-owned Starlink, Jio’s satellite venture is also awaiting final security clearance to launch.
Cheap data is the playbook that built Jio in India, and the one Musk has used in markets like Kenya to unsettle local telecom players. SpaceX now plans to enter the mobile carrier market itself, starting in the United States.
Musk did not specify prices for India, where mobile data costs about rupees 7.74 ($0.08) per gigabyte, among the lowest in the world.
“Obviously, if Starlink is too expensive in India, no one will buy it, so SpaceX will need to make pricing affordable,” he said in a post on his social media platform X on Saturday.
“The reality is that competition would greatly benefit the average citizen in India by giving them more choices, as it always does. Ambani’s profits will be lower, but he is not going out of business,” Musk added.
Musk’s remarks were the latest in a series of X posts in which he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and Ambani of stalling Starlink’s entry into one of the world’s biggest internet markets to favour market leader Jio.
India’s government has denied any bias in its approval process, noting that the three satellite ventures seeking to launch, including Starlink’s and Jio’s, are all awaiting final security clearance.
Late on Friday, Musk taunted Ambani directly, addressing him as “Prime Minister Ambani” and asking whether he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete”.
Reliance has not responded to Musk’s remarks.