Elon Musk should work with South Africa and launch his Starlink satellite internet service there, the country\u2019s deputy communications minister said on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The service has not launched in the continent\u2019s largest economy, with Musk criticising as racist laws that require telecommunications companies to be 30% owned by Black citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCan you get along with us? Work with us in this journey of minimising inequality?\u201d Deputy Minister of Communications and Technology Mondli Gungubele said at an event hosted by Bloomberg near Cape Town on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hope Elon is listening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat is 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Telecommunications operators such as Starlink are subject to licensing regulations that require 30% ownership by Black citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 12 April, Musk wrote on his X social-media platform that he can\u2019t get an operating license for the service \u201csimply because I am not Black.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Satellite technologies that rely on a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites would be a potential game-changer for South African users who\u2019ve historically faced expensive or unreliable internet options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gungubele said the government was continuing to talk to Starlink. \u201cWe\u2019re engaging on all those issues, and we hope to find one another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa’s deputy communications minister has called on Elon Musk to launch his Starlink satellite internet system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":863523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2104812428068311202","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2220303598790039","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18092133035169936","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[2662,26643,18568],"class_list":["post-877283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-elon-musk","tag-mondli-gungubele","tag-starlink"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877283","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=877283"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877308,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877283\/revisions\/877308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}