'Hypocrite': Elon Musk builds spy satellites for America, then calls India's security check a conspiracy

Elon Musk has a strong view on governments that want security guarantees before letting his satellites operate: when it is the United States, he builds them a secret network and takes the cheque. When it is India, he calls it a conspiracy by oligarchs.

That is the double standard at the centre of his attack on India this week.

What Starshield Is

SpaceX runs a unit called Starshield, the military and intelligence sibling of Starlink. According to reporting led by Reuters in 2024, citing multiple sources, Starshield is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites for the US National Reconnaissance Office — the agency that runs America's spy satellites — under a classified contract worth about $1.8 billion signed in 2021.

The hardware and services are sold to the US military through dedicated Space Force channels. SpaceX has also held contracts to build satellites that track ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Because much of this is classified, the full scope is hard to confirm — but the existence of the programme is well reported, and SpaceX has not denied it.

The Double Standard

Hold that beside his India complaint.

In the United States, Musk willingly operates inside the most demanding national-security regime on earth: classified contracts, secrecy requirements, government control over sensitive satellite capabilities. He does not call the NRO an oligarchy. He does not accuse the Pentagon of a chokehold on the American people. He builds what they ask, under their rules, and profits enormously.

India is asking for something far more modest: that traffic from Indian users be monitorable and controllable within India, and that the state be able to suspend service in an emergency. This is the baseline any country with hostile borders would demand. Musk accepts far heavier security conditions from Washington without complaint — and brands Delhi's lighter ones a crime against the people.

Why The Contrast Is Damning

The contrast matters because it exposes what the outrage is really about.

Musk clearly understands national security. He does not think security clearances are inherently corrupt — he runs a business built partly on satisfying them. So when he treats India's security process as illegitimate, the objection is not principled. It is that India is making him wait, and Washington pays him. Security he profits from is sacred; security that merely inconveniences him is an oligarchy.

The Fair Point

In fairness, there is a real difference: Starshield is a willing partnership where Musk is the supplier of choice, while in India he is an applicant in a queue. Being a valued US contractor is simply more comfortable than being one of three licensees awaiting clearance.

But that cuts against him, not for him. It means his complaint is about his own convenience, not about principle. A man who accepts stringent security control when it comes with a lucrative contract has no standing to call ordinary security control a conspiracy when it comes with a wait.

The Correct Path

India's demand is not unusual, and Musk of all people knows it, because he meets stricter versions of it every day for the US government.

The licence is available on the same basis it is for Jio and Airtel: satisfy the security agencies that India, not a foreign company, controls what happens on a network over Indian soil. Musk has shown he can work within exactly such rules. He simply does not want to when the government in question is not the one signing his defence contracts.

What To Watch

Whether Musk extends to India the security cooperation he gives the US as a matter of course. Whether he keeps framing a routine clearance as corruption. And whether the glaring contrast with Starshield features in how India, and the public, read his complaint.