South Africa, at the moment, seems to be living rent-free in Elon Musk’s head. The richest man in the world shouldn’t have to worry, really, about a country he and his chums abroad and in SA call a “shithole”, should he?
Yet, he’s been all over his social media platform, X, banging on about how he can’t bring his Starlink business to this country because of the “racist” broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) rules.
It’s a tub he and his supporters have thumped multiple times previously as they continue the refrain that this supposed racism is chasing away investors.
That ignores the reality, though, that more than 600 foreign companies are doing business here – and making money – quite happily.
Some of them haven’t even surrendered their shares to blacks, as Musk says they are forced to do.
They have gained B-BBEE exemptions by investing considerable sums in programmes to actually empower people.
Why can’t Starlink do that, we wonder?
The issues of B-BBEE aside, we are curious as to the timing of the latest Starlink complaints by Musk.
Could it have something to do with the fact that one of his rivals, Amazon, could be bringing a better satellite communications product to the SA market soon?
