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Elon Musk has sharply attacked South Africa’s black economic empowerment legislation, describing the country’s BEE laws as “utterly wrong and improper”.
Speaking to a journalist at Bloomberg’s Qatar Economic Forum in Doha, the South African-born billionaire — and the world’s richest person — lashed out at the “racist laws in South Africa” in what was an often tense encounter.
Musk was responding to a question about whether he recognised that there was a conflict of interest over his access to the White House and his demands that he shouldn’t have to comply with South African BEE equity rules to get a licence for his satellite broadband service, Starlink.
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Denying any conflict of interest, Musk proceeded to launch a scathing attack on South Africa’s BEE laws, which were introduced to ensure there was economic redress following the end of white apartheid rule.
“First of all”, he said, “you should be questioning why there are racist laws in South Africa. That’s the first problem. That’s what you should be attacking.
“It’s improper for there to be racist laws in South Africa. The whole idea of what Nelson Mandela – who was a great man – proposed was that all races should be on an equal footing in South Africa,” Musk said.
“That’s the right thing to do, not to replace one set of racist laws with another set of racist laws, which is utterly wrong and improper. So, that’s the deal: all races should be treated equally, and there should be no preference given to one or the other.
“Whereas”, he continued, “there are now 140 laws in South Africa that give strong preference to you if you’re a Black South African and not otherwise.”
Musk then went on to complain about his inability to secure a licence to operate Starlink in South Africa because of BEE rules that would require him to sell 30% of the local Starlink licensee to Black investors.
“I’m in a subset situation [of white South Africans], where I was born in South Africa but can’t get a licence to operate Starlink – because I’m not Black.”
Communications minister Solly Malatsi has begun work to allow for “equity equivalents”, like skills development, to replace the current requirement for the sale of equity.
Bloomberg News reported earlier on Tuesday that President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday, would meet with Musk on Tuesday night. And, according to the report, South Africa intends to offer Musk a workaround of BEE rules for Starlink to operate in the country – a reference to the “equity equivalents” option – aiming to ease tensions with both the billionaire and Trump.
Tuesday’s meeting between Musk and Ramaphosa could prove fiery after Musk’s comments during the Qatar interview.
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