Billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink, in a potential workaround of South Africa\u2019s Black-empowerment rules to gain an operating license, may invest about R2 billion in the country, Business Day reported citing sources that it didn\u2019t identify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The internet services company will channel that investment into infrastructure to support the Southern African Development Community made up of 16 countries, the Johannesburg-based newspaper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starlink told the South African government it will use local firms to build its infrastructure and lease land, fiber, energy as well as for security and maintenance support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It aims to secure a deal with South African authorities before the country hosts a Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg in November, Business Day said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pretoria-born Musk has previously indicated that he wants Starlink internet services to be made available in Africa\u2019s largest economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he has refused to relinquish any equity in the business to comply with Black-empowerment rules, which he says are \u201copenly racist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi has proposed changes to the country\u2019s empowerment laws for multinational satellite providers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s proposed that these companies should be able to qualify for operating licenses by meeting criteria, such as investing in Black-owned businesses and related infrastructure in South Africa, instead of the current requirement that they partner with Black shareholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, the decision to award Starlink an operating license in South Africa will ultimately rest with the country\u2019s industry regulator, Malatsi said earlier this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Starlink may invest R2 billion in South Africa as a possible workaround to get into the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":735077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[18568],"class_list":["post-829894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-starlink"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829895,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829894\/revisions\/829895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}