Reliance Industries on Friday, 16 October 2026, rejected Elon Musk’s claims that it was blocking Starlink’s entry into India and said it welcomed competition, according to Forbes, Free Malaysia Today and Onmanorama. ‘At Reliance, we have never feared competition,’ the company said in its statement, adding that ‘we welcome competition in satellite communications, including Starlink’ and calling it ‘the truest test of who serves the customer best’.
The statement answers a public attack by Mr Musk, whom IndiaX24 reported on earlier when he accused ‘oligarchs’ of blocking the service. He said that ‘we are being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people’ and called the situation ‘a crime against the people of India’, according to the Free Malaysia Today report. He also addressed Mukesh Ambani directly, calling him ‘prime minister’ in what the report describes as an apparent jibe at his closeness to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. CNBC’s headline of 9 October quoted him as asking whether Mr Ambani was the ‘real boss of India’.
Reliance reframed the dispute as a licensing question. It said that its own satellite internet service, offered through Jio Satellite Communications, is awaiting the same government clearances that have kept Starlink out of commercial service, according to Forbes and the Tech Insider summary. Starlink has not begun commercial service in India and is still waiting for security clearances and spectrum allocation, the same steps required of Jio Satellite Communications and Eutelsat OneWeb, according to the summary.
The government’s position was given by the communications ministry, which said that it maintains a ‘fair and non-discriminatory authorisation framework’ for all telecom services, according to Free Malaysia Today. That is a general statement and does not say when the clearances will be given.
The business history is complicated. In March 2025 Jio Platforms signed an agreement with SpaceX to offer Starlink services, according to the Free Malaysia Today summary, which means that the two companies were partners in distribution before the public dispute. IndiaX24 has not verified the terms of that agreement.
The timing relates to the stock market. The statement came days before Jio Platforms opens its public offer, which was set at a price band of Rs 1,065 to Rs 1,119 a share, as IndiaX24 has reported, and Free Malaysia Today notes that the unit is seeking a valuation of about 108 billion dollars and plans to raise about 3.2 billion dollars. A public dispute with the world’s richest man is the kind of risk that investors may ask about, but the reports reviewed do not say whether the company’s prospectus discusses it.
The satellite internet question is of practical interest to consumers. Satellite broadband can reach places that mobile towers and fibre do not, which is general background, and the reports reviewed do not give prices or launch dates for any provider. IndiaX24 therefore cannot say when a customer in India will be able to buy such a service.
The statement did not name any date by which Reliance expects its own clearance. The reports reviewed also do not include a response from Mr Musk or from SpaceX to Reliance’s statement.
What is verifiable is limited to the two sides’ public statements and the status of the clearances. IndiaX24 will report on the government’s decisions on spectrum and security approvals for satellite broadband.
Image: Starlink satellites seen in the night sky (file photo). Photo by M. Lewinsky/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0, licensed under CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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