On Sunday, Elon Musk went to Bali, a resort island in Indonesia, to launch Starlink satellite internet service in that country, which has more islands than any other in the world.
Musk was greeted with a flower crown at a community health clinic in Denpasar, the provincial capital of Bali, where he launched the Starlink service with Indonesian ministers. Musk was wearing a green Batik shirt.
Indonesia is a huge group of 17,000 islands spread out over three time zones, home to more than 270 million people. For years, the country has been trying to make deals with Musk’s companies, Tesla (TSLA, +1.50%) to invest in batteries and SpaceX to bring fast internet to the country’s remote areas.
During the ceremony, Musk tested the speed of the Starlink internet service with a group of health workers from Indonesia’s remote areas. One of the places they went was Aru, one of Indonesia’s most remote and unserviced islands in Maluku province.
Musk told reporters, “This could really save the lives of people who work in remote medical clinics, and I think it could also be used in education.”
“If you can connect to the internet, you can learn anything and market your business all over the world.” Therefore, I believe it will be very helpful, he said.
He also signed a document that will improve connectivity in the health and education sectors of the country. There were no specifics given about the deal between the Indonesian government and Musk’s SpaceX, the aerospace company that runs Starlink services.
Coordinating Minister of Maritime and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said that starting the service at a health clinic fits with Starlink’s main goal of making high-speed internet affordable for everyone, especially in remote and underserved areas.
“Our remote regions need Starlink to expand high-speed internet services, especially to help with problems in the maritime, health, and education sectors,” Pandjaitan told reporters. Starlink is a close ally of Indonesian President Joko Widodo. On Sunday, he talked to Musk in different ways.
Budi Arie Setiadi, the Minister of Communication and Informatics, said earlier that local internet providers can’t reach outer islands because their coverage isn’t good enough. This is because they need base transceiver stations to send signals. The low-earth orbiting satellites that Starlink uses will help them provide faster internet across the whole country.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said that out of the country’s more than 10,000 clinics, about 2,700 still don’t have internet access.
“The internet can make it easier for people to get health services because it makes it easier for people in different areas to talk to each other,” he said. “This means that health service facilities can report in real time or as recently as possible.”
Musk is also going to be at the 10th World Water Forum, which aims to solve problems with water and sanitation around the world, during his first trip to Bali.
Musk spoke at the B-20 business forum in 2022, which was held before a meeting of the Group of 20 leading economies in Bali. He joined the conference through a video link, weeks after taking over Twitter in a very public and closely watched move.
Musk’s trip comes just a few weeks after Apple AAPL, +0.02% When CEO Tim Cook met with Widodo on April 17, he told him that the company would “look at” making things in Indonesia.
Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -0.19% CEO Satya Nadella came to Indonesia on April 30 and said that the company would spend $1.7 billion over the next four years building new infrastructure for AI and the cloud.
In order to reach the government’s Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, Widodo has pushed for growth in the information and digital technology sectors.
One hundred years after it got its independence from Dutch rule, the country wants to have one of the world’s top five economies with a GDP of up to $9 trillion.
