BRUSSELS, January 14. /TASS/. European officials and companies are uneasy about Elon Musk’s Starlink potentially gaining control over satellite frequencies in the European Union, the Financial Times (FT) reported.

According to the publication, the concerns are centered around the 2 GHz band currently used by US companies Viasat and EchoStar. Their licenses expire in May 2027, when new players will get a chance at gaining those rights, including the Starlink platform and operators from China.

"This will determine who becomes the leader in space [for Europe]," an industry official said amid intensifying debate over how the EU can mitigate and limit its dependence on US tech giants. EU commissioner for defense and space Andrius Kubilius told the FT that after the current licenses expire, "we should not miss an opportunity to manage 2GHz allocations wisely." This is "a strategic enabler for space governmental communications, in particular for direct-to-device services," he added.

Relations between the European Commission and the world’s wealthiest man have recently become even more strained amid the Grok AI image generation controversy, which Brussels demands be fixed. Otherwise, European officials have warned, the tool could face measures under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA).

The EU launched an investigation into X in December 2023. The European Commission suspects the company of violating the Digital Services Act, which requires internet operators to remove content designated as prohibited in the European Union without a court order. On January 8, the EC accused X of generating anti-Semitic and pedophilic content using Grok and instructed the platform to preserve all documents related to this neural network until the end of 2026. This instruction effectively indicates that the EC is preparing new legal charges against X.