Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has extended an invitation to Elon Musk to visit Beirut following a phone call in which Musk expressed strong interest in entering Lebanon’s struggling telecommunications sector. The Lebanese presidential office confirmed the conversation, highlighting Musk’s enthusiasm for the country’s telecom and internet industry.
Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and the X platform, responded gratefully to the invitation and pledged to visit Beirut at the earliest suitable opportunity.
Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet service, already covers parts of the Middle East including Oman and Jordan. In May, Sam Turner, Starlink’s global director of licensing and development, met President Aoun in Beirut to discuss deploying the service in Lebanon. Turner emphasized Starlink’s potential to improve connectivity for industrial, commercial, banking, educational, and government sectors.
Lebanon’s telecom infrastructure is currently unstable, costly, and in urgent need of modernization—a challenge compounded by the country’s severe financial crisis. Starlink’s satellite broadband technology, which operates satellites orbiting between 200km and 2,000km, could provide high-speed internet access even in remote or underserved areas.
The country also faces ongoing economic hardship and reconstruction needs following last year’s conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which damaged significant parts of Lebanon.
