Elon Musk responds to Kenya network outage as over 129k join X space to discuss President’s speech

CEO Elon Musk was tagged severally by Kenyans online as many sought his intervention following Tuesday’s internet outage.

Musk reacted under a comment made by X user Amerix and George Njoroge, who asked him to make Starlink more affordable.

Amerix told Musk “Give Kenyans another offer for Starlink. We will subscribe in droves. Our current Internet Service Providers collaborate with a repressive regime to throttle citizen journalism and muzzle freedom of speech”

Njoroge agreed adding “When Kenyans were suffering, our current ISPs collaborated to oppress us. We don’t trust them anymore. Please make Starlink more affordable” This was at 6:43pm 26 June when Elon responded.

He assured “Starlink Mini will be about half the standard terminal price and available later this year”

Meanwhile, an X space to discuss President Ruto’s speech on the Protests and the Finance Bill 2024, saw over 129,000 Kenyans join to listen or share their opinions. 

Safaricom has come out to also defend itself with CEO Peter Ndegwa clarifying the network outage was due to reduced bandwidth on key internet traffic cables.

Ndegwa explained, “I want to start by sincerely apologising for a network outage that started on the 25th of June. This network outage was occasioned by reduced bandwidth on some of the internet, and some of the cables that carry our internet traffic. Please note that this did not only affect Safaricom But also affected the whole industry,” Ndegwa said.

Adding

“We are doing everything to ensure that we give you the service that you deserve. And also we bring back service as soon as possible.”

Addressing concerns raised on social media about Safaricom disclosing customer information or location, Ndegwa reaffirmed its commitment to data privacy laws.