To his more than 219 million followers on his social media platform X, Mr Musk made the racially charged claim that his satellite internet service provider was "not allowed to operate in South Africa simply because I'm not black".

But the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) - a regulatory body in the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors - told the BBC that Starlink had never submitted an application for a licence. As for the foreign ministry, it said the company was welcome to operate in the country "provided there's compliance with local laws".

To operate in South Africa, Starlink needs to obtain network and service licences, which both require 30% ownership by historically disadvantaged groups.

This mainly refers to South Africa's majority black population, which was shut out of the economy during the racist system of apartheid. White-minority rule ended in 1994 after Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) came to power.

Since then, the ANC has made "black empowerment" a central pillar of its economic policy in an attempt to tackle the racial injustices of the past. This has included adopting legislation requiring investors to give local black firms a 30% stake in their businesses in South Africa.

Mr Musk - who was born in South Africa in 1971 before moving to Canada in the late 1980s and then to the US, where he became the world's richest man - appears to see this as the main stumbling block for Starlink to operate in the country. Starlink, in a written submission to Icasa, said the black empowerment provisions in legislation excluded "many" foreign satellite operators from the South African market, according to local news site TechCentral.

But foreign ministry spokesperson Clayson Monyela challenged this view in March, saying on X that more than 600 US companies, including computing giant Microsoft, were operating in South Africa in compliance with its laws - and "thriving". (BBC/Getty Images)