AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has questioned Elon Musk's remarks asking whether Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani was the 'real boss of India'. While his response contrasted with Rahul Gandhi's attempt to target the PM Modi government, the Hyderabad MP also challenged the BJP to defend its nationalist rhetoric against pressure from a powerful American tycoon.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi questioned Elon Musk's remarks on Indian government and Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani. (Image: PTI and Reuters)
New Delhi,Oct 16, 2026 12:04 IST
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has never been reluctant to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But when the world's first trillionaire, Elon Musk, questioned the authority behind India's political and business decisions, the Hyderabad MP drew a distinction between opposing the government and allowing a foreign businessman to dictate terms to the country. His response also offered a pointed contrast with Rahul Gandhi, who seized on Musk's allegations to renew his attack on the BJP-led Centre's ties with powerful industrialists in India.
The dispute began with SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Musk's public complaints about the delay in allowing Starlink, his satellite internet company, to begin commercial operations in India. But it has since acquired a political dimension, with the opposition seeing an opportunity to question the government's relationship with big business, while Owaisi has turned the controversy into a test of the BJP's own nationalist credentials.
Speaking to journalists in Hyderabad after AIMIM moved the Supreme Court over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Owaisi made it clear that his opposition to PM Modi did not mean he would endorse an outsider "gora (white-skinned man)" questioning India's political authority.
"We were always against Narendra Modi and will remain so. But how can Elon Musk write this kind of thing about our India's Prime Minister?" he questioned on Thursday (October 16).
Owaisi then turned his fire on the BJP, asking why a party that frequently invokes nationalism appeared reluctant to respond when a powerful foreign businessman challenged the country's decision-making. "The sad thing is, why are the BJP and the Modi government so afraid of gorachamdi (white skin)?" he said.
The AIMIM chief's argument was not an endorsement of PM Modi's politics. Instead, it was an attempt to separate domestic political opposition from the question of who gets to determine India's economic and regulatory choices.
That distinction is central to understanding why Owaisi's intervention stands apart from other Opposition leaders' response to the same controversy.
OWAISI TURNS MUSK'S CASE AS A NATIONALISM TEST FOR THE BJP
Owaisi's remarks came amid a public confrontation between Musk and the Union government over Starlink's pending approvals. The SpaceX chief alleged that "oligarchs" in India were obstructing his company's entry into the Indian market to protect their dominance. He subsequently asked whether Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani was the "real boss of India" and "Prime Minister Mukesh Ambani".
The government rejected the suggestion that the regulatory framework was unfair or discriminatory. It said security assessments were under way for all three licenced satellite communications operators — Starlink, Reliance Jio's satellite venture and Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb — and that they were at broadly the same stage of the process. None could begin commercial services until the required security assessments and spectrum-related approvals were completed.
Musk's complaint raised two questions. One is whether the government is applying its regulatory requirements fairly to competing businesses. The other is whether a foreign billionaire can use his public platform and commercial leverage to pressure India into changing its decisions.
Owaisi focused on the second question and did not let the first be ignored.
"How the country's resources are used, the country will decide. Will this white man sit and dictate to us?" he asked.
He also invoked the contradiction he sees in American pressure over India's energy choices. Washington has urged New Delhi to reduce its reliance on Russian oil, Owaisi argued, while the United States itself continues to buy Russian energy products. He cited India's low data charges as another reason to question the implication that the country's existing arrangements necessarily disadvantage its citizens.
The point was less about defending every decision taken by the Modi government than about insisting that Indian policy should be determined by Indian interests.
Owaisi took particular aim at the BJP's reluctance to confront powerful foreign figures with the same force it uses against domestic political opponents.
"Whenever you see white skin," he said, the BJP appears to become apprehensive. He challenged PM Modi to demonstrate the muscular nationalism that the ruling party routinely projects, urging the Prime Minister to tell Musk that India would make its own decisions.
"You will not cut the stomach of a country's citizens to fatten the stomach of some white man," Owaisi said, arguing that the interests of Indian workers and citizens must take precedence.
WHEN MUSK'S ALLEGATIONS SUITED RAHUL GANDHI'S POLITICAL RHETORIC
Rahul Gandhi approached the controversy from a different direction.
When Musk asked whether Ambani was the "real boss of India", the Leader of the Opposition responded on X saying, "Welcome to India, Elon. Wait till you discover the other guy."
The Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, did not name anyone in that post. However, he appeared to be referring to industrialist Gautam Adani, whom he and the Congress have repeatedly accused of benefiting from his perceived proximity to the PM Modi-led government. The Congress leader reinforced the implication on Instagram by sharing a carousel picture featuring Adani in a photograph with Modi aboard a jet.
"Thank you, Rahul. This is indeed troubling,” Musk responded to Rahul Gandhi's post.
The exchange offered the LoP in the Lok Sabha an opportunity to bring a long-running Congress charge, that political power and corporate influence have become too closely intertwined under the BJP government, into a dispute that had begun with a foreign company's regulatory grievances.
Rahul Gandhi's response was a pointed political jab rather than a detailed assessment of the regulatory process. It amplified Musk's allegations and redirected attention towards Adani and the Prime Minister's relationship with industrialists.
The approaches of Rahul Gandhi and Asaduddin Owaisi are different. Owaisi's sharpest point was not that PM Modi should be spared criticism. It was that opposing PM Modi does not require accepting Musk as an authority on India. And for a party that has made nationalism a central pillar of its politics, the question Owaisi was difficult to sidestep.
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(Written by Avinash Kateel)