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Satellite Internet

South Africa to Musk: Starlink welcome if it respects our 30% equity rule

Deputy minister Mondli Gungubele says South Africa is ready for Starlink, but urged Elon Musk to respect the country's 30% black economic empowerment ownership rule at a Bloomberg media event in Hermanus.

By Priya Raman · · 2 min read

A Starlink user terminal dish mounted on a pole outdoors
Wikideas1 via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

South Africa’s government is happy to welcome Elon Musk’s Starlink into the local market, but wants the billionaire to respect the country’s equity laws, deputy communications and digital technology minister Mondli Gungubele has said.

Speaking at Bloomberg’s 2026 Africa Business Media Innovators gathering in Hermanus in the Western Cape on Monday, Gungubele said Starlink would assist the government’s ambitions to enhance connectivity across the country.

“There are a lot of private operators in Africa … [but] we always need more. That’s why the president is expressing the word, saying we are ready,” Gungubele said, adding that President Cyril Ramaphosa had recently told investors in Greece that South Africa is “ready for business”.

The remarks mark the latest exchange in a long-running row over the country’s broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) rules, which require telecommunications licence holders to sell 30% of the equity in their local subsidiaries to historically disadvantaged groups. Musk, whom Business Day describes as a “South Africa-born” billionaire, has been sharply critical of the policy, calling it “racist”, and claimed on X that he could not bring Starlink to South Africa because he is “not black”.

Gungubele urged Musk to “walk with us in this journey of improving, minimising inequality”, saying it should not be “ridiculous” to ask investors to comply. “We are saying, for instance, 30% here,” he said.

The deputy minister also invoked national sovereignty, arguing that multinational investors should help developing countries acquire digital capabilities rather than concentrating control. “Sovereignty of the developing countries is when the multinationals sit down in that country, the invested country, and agree, for the temporary … transfer,” he said.

Sources

More on this topic: all Satellite Internet stories

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