Is Elon Musk lining up to buy Optus? According to Boost Mobile founder Peter Adderton, he should. ChannelNews recently revealed that Adderton is eyeing a bid for Optus, a story later picked up by the Australian Financial Review, where he claimed major superannuation funds such as AustralianSuper could back a local takeover of the embattled telco. Adderton also suggested Musk might join the mix. “If I was Elon, I’d buy [into] Optus tomorrow, I think that would be a great buy for him,” he said. The comments come as Optus faces mounting pressure from regulators and the federal government following September’s catastrophic Triple Zero outage that left emergency calls unanswered and prompted a Senate inquiry into Singtel’s foreign ownership of critical Australian infrastructure. Boost Founder Peter Adderton Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who will chair the inquiry, has flagged a broader review of overseas control of essential services, with Communications Minister Anika Wells warning “nothing is off the table.” Adderton argues that returning Optus to Australian ownership would rebuild public trust after a series of failures. “Singtel has shown itself to be incompetent and profit-focused at the expense of customers,” he said, calling on Canberra to consider mandating a sale to an Australian consortium. Enter Elon Musk. The Tesla and SpaceX boss has already been expanding his telecommunications footprint, with SpaceX this week agreeing to acquire $17 billion worth of wireless spectrum from EchoStar to bolster its Starlink “Direct to Cell” satellite service. The deal allows SpaceX to beam cellular coverage directly to standard mobile phones, eliminating dead zones globally, and gives Boost Mobile customers in the US early access to the new network. As for Australia, if Musk were to invest in or acquire Optus, it could radically shake up the nation’s telco landscape. Starlink’s direct-to-cell capability could merge with Optus’s terrestrial network to create a hybrid national mobile provider capable of challenging Telstra’s dominance and undercutting Vodafone and TPG Telecom on coverage. It would also complicate matters for Amazon, whose Project Kuiper recently beat Starlink for an NBN Co contract to deliver next-generation satellite broadband to regional Australians from 2026. Amazon’s deal makes it a key infrastructure partner to the federal government, while Musk’s companies continue to circle Australia’s telecommunications market from the private side. For now, Optus’s Singaporean owners at Singtel remain under fire in Canberra and Adderton is still rallying support for an Australian-led buyout. About Post Author