Elon Musk, Mukesh Ambani, Starlink

Elon Musk and other billionaires invest staggering sums into electing Trump, plus other takeaways from third-quarter filings Musk, the world’s richest person, gave nearly $75 million to a pro-Trump super PAC that he helped form over the summer – a massive cash infusion aimed at helping turn out voters in key battleground states. Adelson, a staunch Trump backer and heir to a casino fortune, gave even more, plowing $95 million into another outside group backing the former president, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission covering the three months ended September 30. ............... Altogether, just three billionaires – Musk, Adelson and Midwestern packaging magnate Richard Uihlein – donated roughly $220 million in a three-month period to groups backing the Republican’s candidacy. ............ Harris has set a blistering pace – raising $1 billion since she became the Democratic standard-bearer in late July – a milestone achieved faster than any other presidential contender. And Tuesday’s filings show that a high-dollar fundraising committee that channels money to her campaign and aligned Democratic committees, took in $633 million during the third quarter – four times the amount raised by Trump’s equivalent fundraising arm in that time.......... In the battle for control of Congress, meanwhile, individual Democratic incumbents and candidates in some key Senate and House races widened their financial advantage over their Republican opponents.

India says no auction of satellite spectrum after Musk decries move Telecoms Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said during a New Delhi event that the spectrum will be allocated administratively in line with Indian laws, and its pricing worked out by the telecom watchdog.......... "This spectrum was long designated by the ITU as shared spectrum for satellites," Musk said, referring to the International Telecommunication Union, a U.N. agency for digital technology. ......... "Satellite companies who have ambitions to come into urban areas, serving elite retail customers, just need to take the telecom licenses like everybody else... they need to buy the spectrum as telecom companies buy," Mittal, who is also the chair of Airtel, said at the New Delhi event. ......... Earlier in 2023, both Eutelsat unit OneWeb and Airtel had voiced concerns about auctioning the spectrum in their submissions to the Indian government. ......... Musk's Starlink and some global peers like Amazon's Project Kuiper back an administrative allocation, saying spectrum is a natural resource that should be shared by companies.



Elon Musk expands his empire of misinformation At any Tesla event, you have to go in expecting a good amount of smoke and mirrors. This is the company run by Elon Musk, after all — its self-anointed Technoking who’s made overpromising and underdelivering a theme of his career........... But Thursday’s “Cybercab” robotaxi unveiling was, even by Musk-ian standards for bluster, one giant optical illusion. The kind of spectacle that should remind everyone that the world’s richest person is someone who promotes and appears to relish misinformation and hyperbole on a mass scale, whether he’s speaking to investors, his millions of followers on X or whichever politician he feels is most likely to agree with his increasingly right-wing and conspiracy-laden worldview........ the fact that the robots were not actually autonomous and were being operated remotely by humans ............ At one point, an attendee even got a bartending bot to admit that it was being assisted by a human. ........... Over the weekend, federal emergency workers were forced to halt their in hurricane-hit North Carolina after National Guard troops reported that an “armed militia” was “hunting FEMA

Elon Musk battles Indian billionaires over satellite internet spectrum Starlink head in spat with owners of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel mobile networks who have called for space bandwidth auctions ......... A person close to the company said only services reaching currently unserved communities should be assigned spectrum, to allow for a “level playing field” after Indian operators invested “billions of dollars” in terrestrial connections. .......... “It’s more about ensuring that the telecom industry remains in control of the local players rather than foreigners coming in and dictating their agenda,” they said. “I can’t think of any other explanation, it’s not like there’s a scarcity of spectrum, it’s abundant.” ......... A simple assignment of spectrum may hand Musk’s company, the largest and most successful of its kind, a “first-mover advantage”, while an auction process would allow Indian players time to get their products market-ready, said the person close to Reliance. ......... Musk told Modi last year that he wanted to bring Starlink, which operates more than 6,000 low-orbit satellites, to India to connect remote communities........ Musk also has his eye on the long-term potential of India as a location for a Tesla plant, despite cancelling a trip to New Delhi earlier this year to prioritise talks with and focus on its Asian rival China.



No spectrum auction: Government after Elon Musk objects to Mukesh Ambani's pitch Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has announced that India will follow the global trend of administrative spectrum allocation. The decision came after Starlink CEO Elon Musk objected to Ambani's Reliance Jio lobbying for the auction route.

‘Will do the best to serve…’: Starlink owner Elon Musk react ..
‘Mukesh Ambani afraid of Elon Musk’? Tesla billionaire responds to meme on Reliance boss
Musk reacts to Ambani lobbying, calls any India move to auction satellite spectrum 'unprecedented' Starlink boss Elon Musk in reponse to news that rival Ambani is lobbying for the auction route instead of allocation for satellite broadband spectrum in India would be “unprecedented”.

Elon Musk Takes On Mukesh Ambani's JIO
Explained why SATCOM technology is unlikely to disrupt incumbent telecom players in India
Masterstroke by Mukesh Ambani, big trouble for Elon Musk, game over for Starlink? Jio has made its apprehensions known to the government about international corporations like Starlink and Amazon Kuiper looking to introduce their satellite internet services in India.
Elon Musk Challenges Ambani and Mittal on Satellite Spectrum
Scindia: No Satellite Spectrum Auction Scindia emphasised that the pricing structure would be determined by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
India Sides with Elon Musk on Satellite Spectrum as Ambani, Mittal Prepare for Intense Battle Telecom minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has given blow to Indian telecos, including Reliance and Airtel, who have been advocating for the auction method ........ the minister cited the Telecommunications Act 2023 and global practices to back his stance on spectrum allocation. .......... “For satcom, spectrum will be allocated administratively...that does not mean that spectrum does not come without a cost. What that cost is and what the formula of that costing is going to be...will be decided by the TRAI,” said Scindia. Satellite spectrum across the globe is allocated administratively, and India is taking the same route, he added. ........ The key issue pointed out by Reliance was TRAI’s failure to provide a level playing field between satellite-based and terrestrial access services. In the letter, the telecom giant cited the Supreme Court judgement in the 2G case and hinted towards a legal battle that might surface if concerns remain unresolved.

Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on October 15 ..
Elon Musk calls Reliance Jio's spectrum auction request 'unprecedented'

India Win

Image via WikipediaAnup Kaphle: Cricket Is Not Baseball, Stop Comparing
India Beats Sri Lanka To Win Cricket World Cup

New York Times: Cricket Victory Brings Relief From Scandal in India: cricket, a sport that permeates life here the way monsoon rains seep into the soil ..... Indians erupted in delirious celebration. Fireworks exploded in city after city and village after village, as throngs of people poured into the streets, beating drums, shouting and cheering. ...... “There is a national kind of mood, or zeitgeist, that cricket brings in,” said Anand Mahindra, managing director of one of India’s largest business conglomerates, Mahindra & Mahindra. “Can it have a disproportionate impact on people’s sense of self and general well-being and confidence? I think yes.” ..... In this country of 1.2 billion people, the national cricket team is treated like a group of rock stars and regarded by some as a metaphor for the country as a whole: young, increasingly confident and slowly moving forward, if sometimes tripping itself in the process. ....... especially gratifying for Indian fans because the national team has failed to win big matches in recent years, even though it was regarded as one of the world’s best teams. On Sunday morning, Indian newspapers carried euphoric headlines. “The World at Our Feet,” shouted The Times of India, the country’s biggest English-language daily. “Windia,” proclaimed The Indian Express. ...... a majority of India’s 138 million television households tuned into the tournament, with many tens of millions watching from elsewhere in the world. ...... In India’s biggest cities, fans congregated around outdoor screens or watched in restaurants and coffee shops. During key Indian matches, pilots on some domestic flights offered midair updates on the score. One 20-year-old model with a flair for self-promotion asked permission to perform a striptease for the team, calling it her patriotic duty. On Sunday, India’s politicians hailed the team, with the chief minister of Delhi announcing cash bonuses for Mr. Dhoni, the team captain, and the four team members from Delhi. ....... Then India was rocked by a telecommunications scandal over the allocation of cellphone licenses, as a government auditor concluded that the government might have lost about $40 billion in fees because officials gave licenses to favored bidders at bargain prices. On Saturday, as the cricket match was under way in Mumbai, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation filed charges against a former communications minister, his aides and several high-profile business executives in that case. They were accused of cheating, forgery and corruption. ........ In India, cricket is no longer regarded as a leisurely sport of gentlemen in white trousers but has instead become a sexy symbol of the “new” India. The stars of the Indian team are wealthy and ubiquitous. They are covered feverishly in the news media and endorse countless products. India Today, a weekly magazine, recently listed India’s 50 most powerful people, placing the country’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, at the top. But ranked second, ahead of several billionaires, was the country’s most revered cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar. ........ Mr. Dhoni comes from one of India’s poorest regions, and his rags-to-riches story embodies the hopes of many Indians on the margins. After the match, Mr. Dhoni and other players said they were inspired to win for Mr. Tendulkar, a batter who has hit more runs than any player in the sport’s history and is often referred to in India as simply “God.” ...... Even Saturday night, e-mails were making the rounds in India charging that the World Cup match was fixed by bookies. Similar accusations were made after India beat Pakistan in a politically charged semifinal last Wednesday. ..... But as India awoke on Sunday, there was joy, a salve to a bitter political season. Even Sonia Gandhi, the president of the governing Indian National Congress Party, stepped into the streets of New Delhi to celebrate — perhaps not only the victory but the distraction it offered. .... “Sachin Tendulkar and company has done Dr. Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi a huge favor,” said Ramachandra Guha, a historian and authority on cricket, “by redirecting popular sentiment away from corruption and toward cricket.”