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Chinese Starlink Rival Swoops Into Brazil After Elon Musk Feud

A restaurant patron uses a smartphone connected to the Starlink satellite internet service in Belem, Brazil. (Alessandro Falco/Photographer: Alessandro Falco/B)

(Bloomberg) -- Fresh off a bitter feud with Elon Musk over his social media platform X, Brazil is now courting a Chinese company to compete with the US billionaire’s Starlink internet service.

The government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will host Xi Jinping this month after the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Rio de Janeiro, has offered the use of a military space base in Brazil’s northeast to SpaceSail, a Shanghai-based satellite manufacturer.  

Lula’s telecommunications secretary said the aim is to foster competition in the low-Earth orbit satellite business in a bid to connect more families, schools and businesses in remote parts of Brazil to the internet.  

SpaceSail still needs approval from the Chinese government to be able to use the Alcantara Launch Center, on the Atlantic coast of Maranhao state. 

“We are trying to move forward in this partnership,” Telecommunications Secretary Hermano Tercius said in an interview this week. “With Xi Jinping in Brazil we’ll try to make this somehow feasible, in an attempt to get him to authorize it.” 

SpaceSail didn’t reply to requests for comment. China’s foreign ministry said it didn’t have relevant information beyond confirming Xi’s trip for the G-20 and a state visit. Brazil’s air force, which operates the facility, said it hadn’t been officially informed of an offer made by the communications ministry. 

The offer to use the base highlights the precarious path Lula is trying to walk between deepening Brazil’s ties with China while maintaining good relations with the US. With Musk potentially bound for a role in President-elect Donald Trump’s protectionist administration, satellite launch rights are among the issues that could upset the balance the Brazilian leader has maintained so far. 

Tercius toured SpaceSail headquarters last month along with Communications Minister Juscelino Filho, publicizing the trip to China in a press release and on social media. The company “plans to launch its low-Earth orbit satellite internet service in Brazil within the next two years,” the ministry said on X.

Lula’s officials also visited Galaxy Space, another satellite maker, but the Beijing-based company doesn’t yet have authorization to offer its services abroad, according to the Brazilian telecom secretary.

The ministerial talks in China took place on the heels of a monthslong feud between Musk and Brazil’s top court, which culminated in million-dollar fines and X being banned in Latin America’s largest economy. 

At one point in the dispute, Starlink had its bank accounts frozen in Brazil in a bid to force X to comply with legal orders. Musk eventually gave in, the accounts were unblocked and access to the US billionaire’s social media platform was restored across the country. 

Starlink only holds a fraction the overall broadband market in Brazil, with its 265,000 customers as of September representing just 0.5% of total users, according to the country’s telecom watchdog. But Musk’s company is the leading provider of satellite internet services, with a 46% market share.

Tercius denied any retaliatory link between Brazil’s feud with Musk and its courtship of his Chinese rivals in the sector, saying it’s about providing choice to consumers. “Regardless of the issue involving Starlink,” he said, “it’s important to have another company so that there is competition, there is another option for Brazilians.”

But China is still playing catch-up to Musk in space. While Starlink has more than 6,000 satellites providing broadband access around the world, Chinese companies only have a few dozen.  

SpaceSail launched its first batch of 18 satellites into orbit in August, with a second launch of another 18 taking place last month. That leaves 600 plus to go before the first phase of its planned constellation will be ready, targeted for the end of next year.

It’s also not the only company potentially interested in using the Alcantara facility, whose location near the Earth’s equator helps catalyze the launch vehicle’s momentum, saving rocket fuel in the process.

A market study done by the Brazilian military identified Musk’s SpaceX and Blue Origin, a space startup backed by Jeff Bezos, as potential users of the base, according to local media outlets including Folha de S. Paulo. The presidency’s Institutional Security Office didn’t respond to a request seeking a copy of the document and the defense ministry didn’t respond to a request on the reports.

In 2019, during Trump’s first administration, he and then-President Jair Bolsonaro signed an agreement that authorized Brazil to launch rockets and spacecraft containing American parts. In return, Brazil guaranteed the protection of US technology contained in those projectiles.

“It is in Brazil’s interest to foster this type of commercial activity, as it will generate substantial resources for local and regional development and for the Brazilian space program,” the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement.

--With assistance from Giovanna Serafim, Bruce Einhorn, Jing Li and Josh Xiao.

(Updates with comment from Chinese foreign ministry, Brazilian air force in 6th paragraph.)

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