"I hope Elon is listening": Gungubele pleads with Musk to bring Starlink home

What's 30% between friends? MyBroadband reports that this was Deputy Minister Mondli Gungubele's pitch to Elon Musk at a Bloomberg event near Cape Town. Starlink still isn't licensed in South Africa, because telecom operators must be 30% owned by Black citizens. Musk says he can't get a licence "simply because I am not Black." Gungubele's answer: keep the other 70% and enjoy the profits. He says talks with Starlink continue. Meanwhile, South Africans stuck with expensive or unreliable internet keep waiting for a service already running across much of Africa. Is this a negotiation, or just a very public invitation?.From MyBroadband.Elon Musk should work with South Africa and launch his Starlink satellite internet service there, the country’s deputy communications minister said on Monday.The service has not launched in the continent’s largest economy, with Musk criticising racist laws that require telecommunications companies to be 30% owned by Black citizens.“Can you get along with us? Work with us in this journey of minimising inequality?” Deputy Minister of Communications and Technology Mondli Gungubele said at an event hosted by Bloomberg near Cape Town on Monday.“I hope Elon is listening,” he said.“What is a 30% share if you take into account the 70% value that you are going to make in terms of yields and profits? He could invest very significantly in the country of his birth,” he said.Telecommunications operators such as Starlink are subject to licensing regulations that require 30% ownership by Black citizens. Laws introduced after the end of apartheid required companies in some industries to sell stakes to Black people who were systematically excluded from the economy during White-minority rule.On April 12 Musk wrote on his X social-media platform that he can’t get an operating license for the service “simply because I am not Black.”.Read more:.Elon Musk’s Starlink to invest R2bn in South Africa, sidestepping BEE rules for license .Satellite technologies that rely on a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites would be a potential game-changer for South African users who’ve historically faced expensive or unreliable internet options.Gungubele said the government was continuing to talk to Starlink. “We’re engaging on all those issues, and we hope to find one another,” he said..This article was first published by MyBroadband and is republished with permission.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

"I hope Elon is listening": Gungubele pleads with Musk to bring Starlink home

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