Well folks, turns out those rumors about Elon Musk’s Starlink teaming up with Vodafone Idea in India were too good to be true. Vodafone has officially denied any partnership talks after its stock went wild over the speculation.
The whole thing started when a media report claimed Musk wanted to buy a stake in Vodafone Idea to help Starlink enter the huge Indian market. Vodafone’s stock promptly skyrocketed 21% that day.
Then it jumped another 6% the next trading day, with insane volume of 1.7 billion shares changing hands. Investors were clearly hyped about a potential Starlink-Vodafone satellite internet alliance.
But Vodafone has now poured cold water on the chatter, saying plainly “The company is not in any such discussion with the named party.”
After this clarification, Vodafone’s stock dropped around 5% as hopes of a Musk injection fizzled. Nearly 1 billion shares were traded amidst the selloff.
It’s not hard to see why investors got overexcited. Starlink is Musk’s satellite internet venture, while Vodafone Idea is one of India’s biggest telecoms. A partnership could’ve been huge.
But Vodafone actually teamed up with Amazon’s rival satellite internet project Kuiper in Europe and Africa. Meanwhile local rivals Bharti and Reliance own their own sat companies.
So for now, Musk and Starlink won’t be riding in to the rescue of struggling Vodafone Idea. The Indian telecom will have to find other ways to boost its fortunes without help from India’s favorite billionaire entrepreneur.
