Elon Musk has acknowledged that SpaceX must offer affordable pricing for Starlink to compete with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio in the Indian market, as government officials address concerns regarding satellite broadband licensing delays and regulatory compliance.

Elon Musk has acknowledged that SpaceX must offer affordable pricing for Starlink to compete with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio in the Indian market, as government officials address concerns regarding satellite broadband licensing delays and regulatory compliance.

Elon Musk has acknowledged that SpaceX must offer affordable pricing for Starlink to compete with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio in the Indian market, as government officials address concerns regarding satellite broadband licensing delays and regulatory compliance.

Elon Musk has said that SpaceX will need to make Starlink pricing affordable in India to take on Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, which offers some of the lowest prices in the country per gigabyte. His latest attack on the billionaire comes just days before Jio’s parent company launches India's largest-ever IPO.

Jio’s own satellite venture is also awaiting a final security clearance from the government to launch.

Musk has been trying to push to get Starlink approved in India after starting out in the US. Starlink has already unsettled local telecom players in markets like Kenya with cheap data.

In India, mobile data costs just Rs 11 or 9 cents per gigabyte.

In a post on X, Musk said, “ 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. And, obviously, if Starlink is too expensive in India, no one will buy it, so SpaceX will need to make pricing affordable.

India has meanwhile pushed back against Musk’s claim that the government was holding up his approvals.

Top government sources told CNBC-TV18 that Starlink was the third company to receive approvals for satellite communication services in India and all three are awaiting licences.

In a post on X, Musk had claimed, “Starlink is licensed in over 165 countries and has spent five years complying with every single law and requirement of the government of India, so why still no license?”

The government officials said that Musk's claim was blatantly false and that the company revived key approvals s for Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite (GMPCS) services and from IN-SPACE only around two years ago.

Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said three operators, Jio Satellite Communications, Bharti-backed OneWeb and Starlink, have received licences, but each must meet the prescribed requirements before starting services.

The source also said that the Reliance industries did not apply for a licence for its own satellite constellation and was distinct from Jio Satellite Communications, which already holds an authorisation.

Former Minister of State for Electronics and IT and BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar told CNBC that India was framing rules to protect its interests as technology becomes a tool of geopolitical leverage. He said that satellite broadband was significantly more complex than conventional telecom services.

He said that India needed to safeguard its strategic autonomy and ring-fence itself while remaining a transparent destination for foreign investment.

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