Elon Musk attends the 56th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2026.
Dennis Bariboos | Reuters
microsoft on Tuesday announced a partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service to expand connectivity around the world.
This shows the willingness of software companies to collaborate. tesla As the world’s richest man, CEO Elon Musk’s business family takes Microsoft partner OpenAI to court.
“Through our collaboration with Starlink, Microsoft is combining low-Earth orbit satellite connectivity with community-based deployment models and local ecosystem partnerships,” Microsoft Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa said in a blog post.
Microsoft is working in partnership with Starlink and Kenyan internet service providers to connect the country’s 450 community hubs, Nakagawa wrote.
The initiative will further increase demand for Musk’s space company. The company has contracts with the Department of Defense and NASA, and could go public this year.
Musk is seeking to recover up to $134 billion in his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman from the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation, which owns more than $100 billion in stock in the commercial AI lab, according to January filings.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with several others, including LinkedIn founder and Microsoft board member Reid Hoffman.
Musk has criticized Microsoft on his social network X, saying earlier this month that the company has a “responsibility to investigate” Hoffman’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr. Hoffman said he deeply regrets knowing Mr. Epstein through his funding relationship with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Earlier this month, Musk said SpaceX would merge with xAI startup, which developed Grok AI models and chatbots, which are gaining traction as a platform of choice for technology applications.
Last year, Microsoft announced that support for Grok models had been added to its Foundry cloud software for building AI-embedded applications.
Microsoft has been working to connect people and technology for years, including in the United States.
After setting a goal in 2022 to reach more than 250 million people by the end of 2025, usage has expanded to more than 299 million people, Nakagawa wrote on Tuesday.
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