- Semu Bhatt
Taken together, Musk’s concentrated power, political interventions, and overall conduct create a strategic warning. The enthusiasm for Starlink should not make India, or any other nation, to treat this record as irrelevant.
Elon Musk has turned an Indian regulatory issue into a heated political confrontation. On 7 October, he accused unnamed Indian oligarchs of blocking Starlink’s entry to preserve their “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people,” which he called a “crime against the people of India.” He then escalated by naming Mukesh Ambani, and asking, “Is Ambani the real boss of India?” and eventually crossed a red line by posting a message addressed to “Dear Prime Minister Ambani”. When Rahul Gandhi responded, Musk thanked him and called the situation “indeed troubling”.
Musk was not complaining about delay. He was publicly advancing the charge that India’s state authority was subordinate to corporate power, a charge that India’s Congress party makes regularly. He was disparaging the Indian Prime Minister while engaging with India’s Leader of the Opposition over the issue.
While most commentary will focus on Starlink and the controversy surrounding its entry and Musk’s posts, this article applies a four-part framework to Musk himself to expose a sovereign blind spot not just for India, but for other countries too.
POWER
Musk is not an ordinary investor. He commands extraordinary influence—political, financial and infrastructural. He is the world’s first trillionaire, with extraordinary influence and proximity to the American state. The amount of wealth, control of critical infrastructure, algorithmic and AI power, and political pull concentrated in one man is much more than what any nation-state should be comfortable with.
Starlink’s deployment in the Russia-Ukraine war shows his decisions can have serious geopolitical implications. Early on in the Russia-Ukraine war, thousands of Starlink terminals were gifted to Ukraine, with SpaceX absorbing the cost for the service. In a similar vein, he also allowed Iranians to use Starlink to circumvent the Iranian government’s censorship efforts during the government’s crackdown on its citizens. Though widely praised, these interventions exposed a structural vulnerability of access to critical communications infrastructure through Musk’s discretion, or American state interests.
In 2022, Musk declined a Ukrainian request to activate Starlink coverage near Sevastopol citing fears of nuclear escalation. Let me repeat it; Musk refused to enable a specific offensive. A military decision entirely at his discretion. Later that year, after Musk posted a peace proposal on X, a Ukrainian diplomat told him to “f*** off”. In response, Musk posted about cutting the funding.
The point is not whether he was right or wrong about his reading of the situation or about his proposal. It is about a private individual in a position to dictate war and peace, and the terms thereof.
Starlink may be a great technology, but if its availability depends on its owner’s judgments, outside a state’s chain of command, it makes strategic sense to scrutinise the owner just as much.
This does not mean that India, or any other nation, should be paranoid about Elon Musk. But it would be highly irresponsible to not recognise that he has both the capacity to make consequential decisions unilaterally and the willingness to exercise his power.
POLITICS
In the United States, Musk funded Trump, financially incentivised voter registration drives, and secured a formal position in the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. He showed that he does not simply express political preferences, but actively influences elections and gains direct leverage.
Musk has a pattern of interference in the political affairs of other countries as well. In Europe, he has endorsed candidates in Germany and UK and openly criticised the British government. In Canada, he is supporting the separation of Quebec, and that Alberta and Saskatchewan should follow suit.
When the person controls a strategically significant communications network that has become a cesspool of anti-India racism, and supports separatism in foreign countries, the implications go well beyond commercial competition. Tomorrow, he can support the Khalistan movement or comment on Kashmir too. His relative restraint towards China provides a noteworthy contrast and a reminder that he is not a crusader who speaks truth to power.
PERSON
Musk’s language in his posts deserves a mention. It projected him as the saviour of Indians held hostage by domestic oligarchs conflating his regulatory issues with public welfare.
Musk’s outburst against India fits a pattern. When Thai rescuers rejected his mini-submarine during the 2018 cave rescue, Musk attacked a diver, who criticised the idea, as a “pedo guy”. In Brazil, he called the Supreme Court judge, who ordered X to comply with court rulings, as a “dictator”, showing his tendency to reduce institutional accountability as authoritarian overreach when his interests are concerned. In India, he has given political colours to a regulatory issue as a pressure tactic.
Starlink’s own conduct in India is worth pointing out. In 2021, it accepted consumer pre-order deposits before completing regulatory approvals, prompting the government to order refunds. His claim that Starlink has no licence creates the impression that India has granted it no permissions, when the outstanding requirements are security clearance and spectrum assignment. Presenting an incomplete picture as though India had denied the service altogether blurs the regulatory facts.
His abrupt shift from courting Indian leadership to confronting it over universally applicable standard regulatory processes is a known reflex. The best example is his feud with Trump. In June 2025, following a policy dispute with President Trump over a spending bill, Musk weaponised his platform to publicly allege that the President was named in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
PERCEPTION
Taken together, Musk’s concentrated power, political interventions, and overall conduct create a strategic warning. The enthusiasm for Starlink should not make India, or any other nation, to treat this record as irrelevant. More so when Musk has self-recognised himself as Soros—a name associated with regime change operations and such American ops worldwide.
The commercial context tests the credibility of Musk’s public-interest narrative. Musk relies heavily on the premise of liberating unconnected Indian villages, yet official government data indicates that 98% of India’s villages already have 4G coverage. Not to mention, Starlink’s standard pricing places its service well beyond the reach of most Indian households, let alone rural ones that Musk claims to champion.
Also, Starlink signed distribution agreements with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel last year, subject to regulatory clearance—commercial partnerships with the very companies he now attacks as oligarchs.
The scale of the immediate consumer opportunity does not justify the political pressure Musk is applying to secure it. That is a red flag the Indian government cannot afford to ignore. Especially because Musk has also put the Indian government, which quite favoured him, in a tricky spot.
Whether the government holds the regulatory line or accelerates clearance, it risks giving the Opposition further ammunition. The former invites charges of cronyism, while the latter risks appearing to succumb to American pressure. In both cases, Narendra Modi’s image takes a hit.
THE SOVEREIGN BLIND SPOT
India might have welcomed Starlink amid hopes of attracting American investment and strengthening ties with the United States. But the US is increasingly turning from a strategic partner to a strategic frenemy.
It is worth remembering US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau’s blunt statement that Washington will not repeat the mistake it made with China. When the American state openly declares its intent to cap India’s economic and strategic rise, entrusting critical communications infrastructure to an American oligarch deeply embedded in that state’s apparatus is a severe vulnerability. At the very least, it calls for security risk assessment to extend to the man behind the technology. The question is not simply what Starlink can offer India, or whether it is safe, but what risks come with Elon Musk, and what happens when his or America’s interests diverge significantly from India’s.
Indian security forces have recovered Starlink equipment from militant caches and narcotics networks. These incidents underline why India cannot treat satellite connectivity as an ordinary commercial service. But the larger threat is not just the technology falling into the wrong hands; it is the hands that control the technology itself. Power, technology, money, mercurial nature, and a saviour mentality make for a very dangerous combination. The fact that the US is a strategic player in South Asia and more often than not undermines Indian strategic interests in the region, is a valid concern too.
Regulation can establish operating conditions, security requirements and statutory obligations. It cannot, by itself, eliminate the discretion of the person who controls the tech. Regulatory compliance and strategic reliability are not the same thing. India must therefore audit more than Starlink’s technology, pricing and security arrangements, and seriously consider if it can responsibly create strategic dependence on infrastructure controlled by Elon Musk.