Two weeks ago, Songezo Zibi, the chair of parliament’s standing committee on public accounts, provided a searing verdict on why he would not personally sanction the licensing of Elon Musk’s Starlink in South Africa.
“Absolutely not, for the reason that he has shown himself to be a political actor — he’s not some independent businessman trying to provide a service. He has taken political positions, and shown a willingness to act on them,” Zibi told the FM and Citadel’s inaugural “Uncomfortable Truths” conference in Cape Town.
Zibi, however, was almost immediately contradicted by the DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis, who spoke on the panel after that. Hill-Lewis said there can be “no question” that Starlink should be approved immediately, given what it could do to improve internet access for schoolchildren in rural areas, its ability to connect police stations and improve rural security, and the potential it has to uplift far-flung communities.
If you want economic growth, Hill-Lewis said, you have to put your personal animus aside for individuals — loathsome as they may be — and think about what’s best for the country.
These opposing viewpoints reveal where sentiment lies in South Africa. At one end of the spectrum, many — particularly in the ANC — want Starlink vetoed for any licence, precisely because of who Musk is; the DA, by contrast, says the country’s economy shouldn’t lose out.
Last week, Musk himself provided an unsolicited gift to critics like Zibi: revelations that Starlink had throttled Ukraine’s satellite service, which meant that its interceptor drones, built to prevent Russian attack drones, were suddenly stymied.
Musk himself said this cap had been “decided by the US military and ultimately [Donald Trump]” — who, of course, has no authority to order a satellite block over another country. Other reports in The Wall Street Journal and The Telegraph say it was Musk’s idea all along.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, described this as a “very dangerous and unpleasant surprise”. The backdrop, of course, is that Trump was furious at the time with Zelensky for attacking Russian oil refineries.
This is precisely the sort of argument that does Musk no favours. As Duncan McLeod, the FM columnist and owner of TechCentral put it, only a South African court or regulator should be allowed to decide who throttles or cuts off a satellite service — not someone outside the country who is susceptible to being leaned on by politicians.
Musk’s problem with South Africa is political: he is adamant that Starlink should not be forced to sell 30% of its shares to a local operator simply to qualify for a licence. And on this point, he is entirely correct — it is bafflingly silly and self-defeating for Icasa, the communications regulator, not to immediately be allowing “equity equivalence”, which would allow foreign firms to take other action to contribute to transformation in the country. Then again, Icasa has rarely put the country above its own bureaucratic strictures.
The solution, as McLeod says, is to welcome all the satellite operators: Starlink, Amazon’s Leo, Eutelsat’s OneWeb and China’s SpaceSail. But as Musk’s Ukrainian adventure shows, it must be a condition of every licence that nobody gets to flick the switch in South African skies.
For all that, as unlikely as it seems, Musk does have an argument. Musk said on X that Ukraine broke the terms of service of Starlink. Starlink, in his mind, is a civilian service and shouldn’t be used as a weapon of war with offensive drone strikes.
He points out that by allowing Starlink to be used in the defence of Ukraine, he has provided an enormous service to that country — but that doesn’t mean Ukraine should use it for offensive purposes.
But there is a counter to this counter. Starlink has also provided the US military with something called Starshield. How the US uses Starshield is up to it, Musk says. But if the US government is allowed to use Starshield, essentially a Starlink-like satellite system under its control for offensive purposes, why would it be so wrong for Ukraine to do the same? And anyway, what is “offensive” about Ukraine trying to destroy drone factories and AI facilities that are used to target Ukraine?
It’s easy to get caught in knots here, but it’s impossible to get away from Zibi’s characterisation of Musk as a political actor, even if he doesn’t want to think of himself that way. Until rival networks are operational, that is a dilemma that faces all countries, including South Africa, and the choice is essentially a political one.
