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Indian telecom billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal said Elon Musk's Starlink can operate in India only if the "kill switch" and control of its network remain inside the country, setting out his terms in a three-way contest for the country's satellite internet market.
Mittal, the founder and chairman of Bharti Airtel Ltd., India's second-largest wireless carrier, said on Nov. 13 that India must hold the power to switch off satellite services on its own soil. He warned against the country depending on a single provider for satellite connectivity and against any foreign operator gaining a monopoly over a network that carries the country's communications.
The remarks bring the Airtel chairman into a public dispute between Musk and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. Musk posted on X that "oligarchs" were obstructing Starlink's entry into India, and the two men traded barbs over the issue a few weeks ago. Ambani's Reliance Jio and Mittal's Airtel together control most of India's mobile subscribers and both want a large share of satellite broadband.
Starlink, owned by Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is caught in a regulatory logjam over how satellite broadband will be run in India. The question of who can cut off a satellite network in an emergency has become the center of the fight between the three billionaires.
Mittal has his own satellite interests. Bharti Enterprises, his family holding company, is one of the largest shareholders in Eutelsat Communications SA, the French operator that owns the OneWeb low-orbit network, a direct rival to Starlink. Jio, for its part, has its own satellite venture with Luxembourg's SES SA.
The three companies have also cooperated. In March 2025, Airtel and Jio each signed agreements with SpaceX to sell Starlink equipment through their stores once the service won approval, deals that followed months of public sparring with Musk over how satellite spectrum should be allocated.
The comments came in the same week Mittal spoke at length in an interview about his business, including succession involving his twin sons and his daughter. Asked about Ambani, he answered with a smile.
Mittal, 69, started out selling bicycle parts in Ludhiana in the 1970s before moving into telephones and winning a mobile license in Delhi in the 1990s. Bharti Airtel now operates across India, South Asia and, through London-listed Airtel Africa Plc, in 14 African countries. Forbes ranks him among India's wealthiest people.
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