On March 7, 2025, Elon Musk, the South Africa-born tech billionaire who owns the space aeronautics company SpaceX and the social media platform X, claimed in a post that Starlink, the satellite internet service provider operated by SpaceX, was not allowed to operate in South Africa because, in his words, "I'm not black."
He repeated the statement during a remote interview at the Qatar Economic Forum on May 20, which repopularized the claim on social media.
(X user @cb_doge)
However, South Africa's telecommunications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), told the BBC in March that Starlink wasn't banned from the country at all. The nation's foreign ministry said Starlink would be welcome to operate in the country as long as it followed South African law.
Snopes reached out to ICASA to ask if Starlink had submitted an application in the last few months or if the South African government had come to an agreement with Musk that would allow Starlink to operate in the nation. A representative told us by email that Starlink "has not applied for a license with ICASA." In other words, Musk's company simply hasn't done the paperwork required to operate in the nation, according to ICASA.
There is some legal nuance to this matter. Following the 1994 end of
According to February 2025 reporting from Semafor, the South African government was considering giving Musk's ventures, including Starlink, an exception to that rule. On May 20, Bloomberg reported that the nation's government had in fact struck such a deal, partly to reduce tensions between the country and Musk's close ally, U.S. President Donald Trump. Snopes has not independently confirmed these reports.
Both Musk and Trump have publicly floated the conspiracy theory that there is a "white genocide" taking place within South Africa (Snopes checked the theory in 2018 and rated it false). The Trump administration withheld aid from the country in February 2025 on the grounds that white South Africans faced discrimination.