New York : Elon Musk is angry that Starlink is not available in India. Elon Musk, who sells Teslas, is happy that BYD cars are not available in the US. Elon Musk is probably neither happy nor angry that Huawei has been virtually kicked out of America. Elon Musk probably has many moods. They all tend to reflect on X, a website that he owns, depending on which of his moods is going to be most suitable to his business fortunes and the strategic interests of the US government.
Elon Musk is a savvy businessman, who often operates at that intersection where his financial fortunes and the US government interests meet. He is not merely a telecom tycoon via the virtue of owning Starlink, which beams the internet on Earth using satellites. He is not merely a rocket man who sends payloads after payloads to space. He is not a mere owner of X who posts 50 times a day on social media. He is not just the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. On Wednesday night, Musk shared a post from one of his favourite X accounts, which argued for availability of Starlink in India. To the post he added his own colourful commentary.
Musk, who is perennially online like a common troll despite being the world’s richest person, then spent the next 24 hours or so gaslighting India with his one-word and one-line quips. His charge: by withholding approval for Starlink India is doing a disservice to its own citizens. In the process, he also sparked a debate which has been intense enough to draw a statement from the Indian government, which has denied the charges Musk has levied.
In one aspect I agree with Musk. Indians do deserve better internet and more reliable connectivity, more so in the remote parts of the country. I agree with Musk that something like Starlink would be incredibly helpful for businesses operating in smaller towns of the country.
When an industry doesn’t have challengers, when the barriers to entry are high, when the entrenched companies tend to operate with a regulatory shield, it eventually is a loss for consumers. Go out on the road and ask people if they are satisfied with whatever phone service and internet they use, and you will struggle to find 100 happy consumers. In India, data is extremely cheap. But reliability of the service is nearly and universally terrible. “Hello hello can you hear me” might as well be how we greet each other on the phone when we pick up our calls. The poor state of our phone networks, 5G or otherwise, is largely also due to lack of competition. India deserves better.
In the last five years we have seen the US government and Elon Musk often acting together in deploying Starlinks in strategically important areas. In Ukraine, Starlink terminals have served as the backbone of the Ukrainian offence against Russians. In Iran, meanwhile, Elon Musk has ordered activation of Starlink connectivity so that the units, allegedly smuggled with the help of Israeli intelligence agencies, can be used. These are not the actions of a businessman who is fighting on behalf of users. These are the cases where Starlink has been used by nation states against other nations with full approval of Musk.
Read Also : Green Card Freeze In US : What It Means For Indian Employees Of Infosys, TCS And Wipro
-
-
-
-
