Starlink row: Musk shares news on Reliance-linked firm’s role in BJP campaign, political donations

Elon Musk on Saturday (Oct 10, 2026) stepped up his attack against industrialist Mukesh Ambani, sharing screenshots of media reports that claimed a Reliance-funded firm had helped boost BJP’s social media campaigns and that a Reliance-linked company had made large political donations to the ruling party.

Mr Musk’s most recent post on X included a 2022 Al Jazeera report headlined “How Reliance-funded firm backs BJP’s Facebook campaigns” and an archived 2024 Indian Express report on Qwik Supply, which said the Reliance-linked firm had donated ₹385 million and ₹1 crore to Sena25or voters. bonds.

https://t.co/DJYynAyO0W

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2026

The latest post comes amid scathing criticism from Mr Musk of Mukesh Ambani over the ongoing delay in the launch of Starlink satellite broadband services in India.

Reliance has not publicly responded to Mr Musk’s allegations, while the government said the country’s authorization framework for telecoms and satellite services was “fair and non-discriminatory” and that any suggestion it was being applied selectively was “baseless and misconceived”.

Hours before he wrote his post, Mr Musk had addressed Mukesh Ambani on X as “Prime Minister Ambani” and accused him of protecting the monopoly. Mr Musk wondered if Mr Ambani would consider his satellite internet service competing with his entity in the country.

On Friday (October 9, 2026), Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that India does not allow monopolies in any sector and that despite the uproar over one particular company, three satcom players have been awarded satcom licenses and can start operations after meeting security requirements and milestones.

Mr. Musk has alleged that powerful business interests are trying to block his service to maintain their dominance in the Indian market. He said his Starlink is being blocked by certain oligarchs who are trying to “maintain their monopoly control over the Indian people”.

“Dear Prime Minister Ambani, please accept my humble apology for failing to realize that you are the real boss of India. You would naturally wish to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you still consider allowing Starlink to compete?” he wrote

Mr Musk also said that many areas of India do not have access to the internet and the absence is preventing children from being educated and small businesses from being able to sell their goods in the global market.

Starlink would change their lives for the better, the technocrat claimed.

Within minutes of this post late on Friday night (October 9, 2026), Mr Musk wrote another, saying that Starlink had proved essential in saving lives during natural disasters around the world when all other communication systems had failed. “So you would also be helping to save men, women and children across India,” he added.

Mr. Scindia said that India does not allow monopoly in any sector.

“Let me put this into perspective. For us, the Ministry of Telecom, we are technology agnostic… Our job is to be able to provide a bundle of services to each individual customer. It is up to the customer to choose in the open market what service they prefer and within that service bundle, which service they prefer,” the Union minister said at a briefing at the India Mobile Congress here.

Mr Scindia said three entities – Mr Musk’s Starlink, Reliance Jio’s satellite business Jio Satcom, Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb – had already secured licenses, while Amazon’s Kuiper project had expressed interest and would have to follow a set process.

While there is a lot of talk about one particular company, three have satcom licenses, he said.

“We are clear in our position. There are three parties that have a license, and when the government decides on a revenue-based fee system, the spectrum will be allocated to them, and when they individually meet the security conditions, they can start operations,” said the minister.

TRAI and the telecom department are close to a final decision on the pricing regime for satcom spectrum, Mr. Scindia added.

The BJP leader also hit out at the Congress on the back of Rahul Gandhi and Mr Musk’s switch to X. “As far as the Congress is concerned… I don’t think they themselves know whether they are going left or right,” said a former party member.

He said Congress initially had a problem with “a certain person getting a license” and pointed out that “now they have a problem and they’ve gotten together with that person as to why he’s not getting a license.”

“So I don’t know if they are clear about where they are going, but that is the case with the Congress, which is to be expected,” Mr. Scindia said.

Mr Musk’s accusations came as the Indian Mobile Congress (IMC) – a major annual telecom event – took place in Delhi.

“Starlink is licensed in over 165 countries and has spent five years complying with every single law and Indian government requirement, so why still no license?” Mr. Musk wrote in a post on X earlier.

Published – 10 Oct 2026 10:26 IST