Elon Musk Jokes about Iranian Complaint Letter against Starlink

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has said he had received a letter from Iranian officials to complain about the satellite Internet service Starlink, which helps Iranians circumvent the government's restrictions on accessing the Internet.

Musk – the CEO of SpaceX, which operates Starlink – held a live discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 18 at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, touching on a range of issues including antisemitism on social media and the Iranian threat.

Netanyahu took the conversation with the owner of X, formerly Twitter, to Israel’s regional foe Iran, saying, “It’s a bad actor that chants, ‘Death to Israel,’ ‘Death to America.’ You don’t want them to have the ability to reach Fremont or Dallas.”

Musk recalled the Iranian letter, joking he was surprised it did not have “Death to America and Israel” written on it, leading Netanyahu to exhort him not to be “calmed” by the letter’s tone.

“These regimes are based on the ability to control the minds of their people,” he said.

In December, as Iranian authorities imposed increasingly severe restrictions to access the internet in an effort to limit information about protests that had broken out nationwide, Musk said SpaceX was close to having 100 Starlink satellites active in Iran.