Elon Musk says give poor people internet access, they will prosper

Elon Musk says internet access could help lift people out of poverty by giving them free access to knowledge and a chance to sell goods and services to a global market. His comments also tie into his broader push for Starlink.

In Short

• Elon Musk says internet access could help lift people out of poverty
• Musk argues that people can learn almost anything for free online
• He says the internet can also help people sell goods globally

To solve the issue of poverty on the planet, the world's richest man, Elon Musk, has a plan. Give internet connection to everyone. People will learn whatever they want online and sell goods wherever they want, globally and that will make them rich.

“With an Internet connection, you can learn anything and sell your products to a global market, which enables prosperity,” Musk wrote on X, forwarding a clip of his from the Qatar Economic Forum on May 20, 2025. In the clip, he argued that giving people an internet connection could do more than traditional forms of aid by giving them access to knowledge and, more importantly, a global market.

Internet as a tool to fight poverty

Can the internet be a tool to fight poverty? Well, Musk believes that the internet can act as a kind of economic unlock for people who have limited opportunities around them. Once someone is connected, they can learn new skills, find information and potentially build something that can be sold far beyond their local market.

“Because once you have the internet connection, you can learn anything for free on the internet,” Musk said. “And you can also sell your goods and services to the global market,” he added.

Now, behind Musk’s philosophical case for global connectivity could sit an obvious commercial reason, and that is SpaceX’s Starlink. With thousands of low-Earth orbit satellites already deployed, as of now, Starlink is precisely the infrastructure built to serve the remote, rural, and under-connected communities Musk speaks of.

In framing internet access as the ultimate anti-poverty intervention, Musk is also effectively positioning his own satellite constellation not merely as a commercial telecommunications utility, but as essential global infrastructure for human development.

To give you some context, in the Doha appearance, Musk was defending DOGE's foreign aid cuts. And days before that time, Bill Gates had accused him of endangering poor children's lives by slashing USAID funding, and Musk hit back at Gates over his Epstein ties at the same forum. Framing internet connectivity as a superior alternative to traditional aid fits a broader argument Musk was making that week: that market access beats charity.

Starlink India launch meanwhile has been going through regulatory roadblocks preventing Musk from brining his satellite internet service to what could be one of its biggest markets eventually.

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