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South Africa plans to offer Elon Musk a workaround of local Black ownership laws for his Starlink internet service to operate in the country, aiming to ease tensions with both the billionaire and US President Donald Trump.
The offer will come at a last-minute meeting planned for Tuesday night between Musk or his representatives and a delegation of South African officials travelling with President Cyril Ramaphosa, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
It’s meant to defuse the onslaught of criticism by Musk and Trump — who’ve spread the conspiracy theory that there’s a genocide against white people in South Africa — before Ramaphosa’s visit to the White House on Wednesday, said the people, who asked not to be identified as they’re not authorised to discuss the matter.
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The alternative to Black economic empowerment laws that in some cases require 30% Black ownership is not specific to Starlink and Musk, the people said. It would be applied to all ICT companies, including those from China and the Middle East, the people said.
An “equity equivalence” option would instead involve investments in infrastructure or training or providing Starlink kits to rural areas in order to help improve internet access. The motoring industry in 2019 signed up for a similar workaround that involved the largest car manufacturers — including BMW, Ford and Toyota — setting up a fund to invest in bringing disenfranchised groups into the sector.
The new rules for ICT companies aren’t about “providing access to a single company but rather part of a broader strategy to create an enabling environment for international investment and expand digital connectivity across South Africa”, the Department of Communications & Digital Technologies said in a response to a request for comment.
Talks on launching Starlink in South Africa stalled earlier this year after Musk and Trump ramped up public rhetoric against policies such as BEE laws.
Musk, who was born in Pretoria, claimed that he was not allowed to operate his satellite service in South Africa “because I’m not Black” and accused the government of having “openly racist ownership laws”.
Trump has also granted refugee status to white minorities in South Africa and criticised a law that gives the government the power to take land for a public purpose. The act is similar to US eminent domain laws — though the law in South Africa allows for expropriation without compensation in certain cases, such as land that’s been abandoned and state-owned property not in use. For now, no land has been seized.
Trump twice last week repeated the false claim that white people are subject to a genocide in South Africa. A South African court in February ruled that there was no evidence to support the claim, calling the idea “clearly imagined and not real”.
South Africa’s talks with Musk over Starlink won’t necessarily form part of a proposed larger trade deal with the US, though getting Musk on board may assist with more positive engagements between the two countries, said the people familiar with the discussions.
Starlink’s technology, which relies on a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, would be a potential gamechanger for South African users who’ve historically faced expensive or unreliable internet options. Only 1.7% of rural households have access to the internet, according to a 2023 survey compiled by Statistics South Africa.
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