On May 20, 2025, Elon Musk, the South Africa-born tech billionaire who owns the space aeronautics company SpaceX (among others), spoke about his businesses at the Qatar Economic Forum.
Bloomberg's Mishal Husain asked Musk about potential conflicts of interest between his tight connection with U.S. President Donald Trump and his businesses. Discussing Starlink, the satellite internet service provider operated by SpaceX, Husain claimed there was "some evidence that companies are allowing access to it because they want to be close to the Trump administration," and pointed to South Africa as an example.
Musk responded by claiming that he couldn't get a license for Starlink in South Africa, because in his words, "I'm not Black."
(It wasn't the first time Musk had made the claim — he also did so on his social media platform X on March 7.)
Users shared the claim widely on social media following Musk's remarks.
(X user @cb_doge)
However, South Africa's telecommunications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, 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 whether 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 apartheid, the policy of legal segregation that effectively blocked the country's Black majority from participating in politics or the economy, then-President Nelson Mandela's government passed legislation aiming to prop up the nonwhite population's economic power. One such law requires many companies operating in South Africa to give local Black firms a stake in operations within the nation.
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 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.