Elon Musk's claim that Indian "oligarchs" conspired to keep Starlink out of the country collides with the Department of Telecommunications' own paper trail. Records show that Jio Satellite Communications and the Bharti-backed OneWeb cleared their security and technical compliance demonstrations well ahead of Starlink, yet neither has been able to launch commercial service. The timeline undercuts the idea that domestic business interests engineered Starlink's delay - if anything, it shows every satellite operator, foreign or Indian, stuck in the same queue.
A Longer Wait for Indian Operators
Jio Satellite Communications completed its security and technical compliance demonstration on March 20, 2025. OneWeb followed in the second half of the year. Starlink's own demonstration did not take place until early 2026, months after its domestic rivals had already cleared that stage. Musk subsequently accused unnamed oligarchs of blocking competition and publicly questioned whether Mukesh Ambani was the real power behind India's regulatory decisions. The government has rejected the allegation, insisting its licensing framework applies uniformly regardless of an operator's origin.
The broader licensing history reinforces that point. OneWeb received its letter of intent in August 2021 and its GMPCS licence in April 2022. Jio applied for the same licence in November 2021, received authorisation in October 2022, and secured in-principle clearance for its satellite gateway that December. Starlink did not receive its GMPCS authorisation until June 2025 - nearly three years after its competitors began the process.
Why Security Clearance Takes So Long
Satellite broadband poses a verification problem that terrestrial networks do not. A conventional telecom operator runs towers and switching equipment on Indian soil, where authorities can physically inspect and, if necessary, shut down infrastructure. Low Earth orbit constellations are different: satellites pass overhead continuously, and many systems use inter-satellite links capable of routing a user's data to a gateway outside Indian territory entirely.
That architecture complicates lawful interception. Blocking a single gateway inside the country offers no guarantee that traffic cannot be rerouted through a gateway elsewhere. Regulators therefore need binding assurances - and technical proof - that an operator can honour interception requests, security directives, and restrictions on unauthorised transmissions no matter where its signal physically travels. With thousands of individual user terminals potentially active across the country, enforcement also requires the ability to identify and disable specific devices if a violation occurs, not merely to monitor a fixed point of entry. These are the practical reasons security clearance has become the bottleneck for every satellite operator, not a hurdle invented for Starlink alone.
A Divided Industry, Not a Rigged One
Musk's narrative also skips over a genuine, long-running dispute among telecom players themselves about how satellite spectrum should be allocated. Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea argued for auctions, saying satellite operators should compete for spectrum on the same terms as terrestrial telecom companies. OneWeb and Airtel took the opposite view, warning that auctions would raise entry costs and discourage competition in a nascent market.
The government ultimately chose administrative allocation under the Telecommunications Act, 2023 - the position favoured by OneWeb and Airtel, not by Jio. That outcome sits awkwardly with the suggestion that regulators have been working to protect Jio's interests. Spectrum assignment for all three operators, including Starlink, still awaits the completion of security clearance, a step that applies equally and has simply taken longer for the newest entrant to pass.