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Elon Musk to join President Jokowi in inauguration of Starlink operation
Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said that Musk has confirmed his attendance at the ceremony and that he would also speak in one of the seminar sessions at the WWF.
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Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, gestures on June 16, 2023, as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and start-ups, at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris. (Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes)
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nited States tech billionaire Elon Musk is scheduled to join President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo this weekend to launch the Starlink satellite service in Indonesia during the World Water Forum (WWF) in Nusa Dua, Bali.
Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said that Musk has confirmed his attendance at the ceremony and that he would also speak in one of the seminar sessions at the WWF.
"We're expecting many heads of state to be in attendance. And Elon Musk and President Jokowi will launch Starlink," Luhut told reporters in Nusa Dua on Tuesday.
Luhut said that the launch of Starlink would be key to improving digital connectivity in the country, especially for its far-flung regions.
Last week, a senior official at the Communications and Information Ministry said that Musk's Starlink satellite company had been granted business licenses to operate in Indonesia.
Starlink's network of low Earth orbit satellites can provide internet to remote locations or areas that have had their normal communications infrastructure disabled.
The firm's services will be trialed this month in the newly planned Nusantara Capital City (IKN) in Kalimantan, which will open its doors in August, according to officials. It will be fully launched at a later date.
The ministry's official said that "PT Starlink Service Indonesia has been issued business licenses for telecommunication operations... namely a business license for VSAT [Very Small Aperture Terminal], closed fixed networks and an ISP (internet service provider) business permit."
Only two thirds of Indonesia's more than 270 million people had access to the internet in 2022, according to the World Bank.
Starlink is already available in Malaysia and the Philippines.
