tldr; Starlink doesn't work in South Africa, Elon's home country, because the ANC and its lawfare arm ICASA demands they hand over 30% to the State because of BEE laws.

dreambuffer 2 hours ago | parent [-]

This is misleading, Starlink does not need to provide "30% to the state", they only have to give 30% ownership to a local company with historically disenfranchised owners providing real economic value to South Africa. This can be a private company.

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IncreasePosts 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Does ownership ever get assigned to people who aren't political cronies of the current government?

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consensus1 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In South Africa I would be very surprised if that ever happened. This is a country that went from exporting electricity to daily blackouts because of corruption.

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dreambuffer 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It is easy to export electricity when you only need to serve 10% of the population.

	▲	xienze an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Whose fault is it the electrical grid apparently, according to your thesis, hasn't been upgraded in the 30+ years since apartheid ended?

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dreambuffer 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, all the time, because it is a private arrangement between the foreign company and the local company. Private companies are in no meaningful sense "cronies" of the government, even if they were accredited by the formal regulating body. You cannot point to a single major case of B-BEEE favouritism, it is a legal framework that is almost always impartial.