Elon Musk eyes Starlink expansion in India, tells Nikhil Kamath 'we’d love to be operating'

Billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has expressed interest in bringing Starlink, the company’s low-cost, high-speed satellite internet service, to India. Speaking on the People by WTF podcast with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, Musk said, “SpaceX is doing great work with the Starlink programme, providing low-cost, reliable internet throughout the world, and hopefully, India. We’d love to be operating in India. That would be great. We are operating in 150 different countries now, with Starlink.”

Musk detailed how Starlink works, with thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit moving at 25 times the speed of sound. “They’re at an altitude of about 550 km, which is generally at low Earth orbit. Because they are in low Earth orbit, the latency is low,” he explained. The satellites are interconnected through laser links, forming a “laser mesh,” allowing them to maintain communication and connectivity even if cables are cut.

Highlighting the service’s unique advantages, Musk said Starlink is particularly useful in rural areas where traditional cell towers and fibre optic networks are costly and inefficient. “In cities, you’ve got these cell towers that are only a kilometre apart. But cell towers tend to be inefficient in the countryside. So, in rural areas is where you tend to have the worst internet… Starlink is very complementary to the existing telecom companies,” he noted.

Musk also emphasised Starlink’s role during natural disasters, stating, “Whenever there is a natural disaster somewhere, we always provide people with free Starlink internet connectivity. We don’t take advantage of a tragic situation.”