Did Trump push Ramaphosa to ease BEE rules for Musk's Starlink?

The announcement on Friday, 23 May, by the communications and digital technologies minister, the DA’s Solly Malatsi, that he is looking at relaxing the regulations around BEE ownership for satellite internet service providers certainly looks like it is tailor-made for Elon Musk.

- Stephen Grootes

Coming just two days after that impossible meeting in the Oval Office and amid indications that, in fact, US President Donald Trump brought up the Starlink issue with President Cyril Ramaphosa in their meeting afterwards, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that one led to the other.

There is much to be concerned about here. Is it really the case that we decide to change our laws just because a current friend of the current US president wants us to?

To put it another way, if Starlink were owned by someone else, would any of this be happening? Actually, yes, some of it probably would be.

Starlink is not the only service of its type. Kuiper, driven by Amazon (owned by Jeff Bezos, another strong Trump supporter), is also gaining ground and would want the same regulation relaxation as Starlink.

What makes this all so much more difficult is that the idea of using transformation methods other than equity in this space has been around for a while.

I cannot understand, given how prominent this issue had become, why Malatsi sat on his hands and appeared to do nothing.

Now it really looks like this was the result of pressure from Musk and Trump.