 "Mourners carry coffins during a funeral procession for members of security forces and civilians said to be killed in protests on Sunday, amid evolving anti-government unrest, in Tehran, Iran. Reuters")
Iran is facing one of its biggest national uprisings in years. The anti-government protests, which have been unfolding for more than two weeks, have US President Donald Trump’s full attention. He is reportedly weighing a series of military options in the Islamic Republic. Amid this, he has said that he will speak with SpaceX owner Elon Musk to restore the internet in the country.
There has been an internet blackout in the Islamic Republic since Thursday (January 8), as the regime cracks down on protesters. More than 500 have reportedly died, with the demonstrations entering their 16th day on Monday (January 12). Trump has threatened action against the Iranian regime should it use lethal force against the protesters.
Musk has also been intervening amid the ongoing Iranian protests. What is at stake for him? We take a look.
Will Musk restore the internet in Iran?
During a press conference at the White House, the US president was asked if he would engage with Musk’s SpaceX company over the internet outage. He said, “He’s very good at that kind of thing, he’s got a very good company.” SpaceX’s Starlink provides internet in Iran.
This is not the first time that Musk could intervene. He provided Starlink services to Iranians to help them circumvent the government’s restrictions in the past, including during previous protests in 2022. That year, the Biden White House engaged with Musk to set up Starlink in Iran after the country was engulfed by protests following the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
The Starlink satellite service has been used in other regions marked by unrest or conflict, such as Ukraine, where Musk in 2022 ordered a shutdown of Starlink during a pivotal Ukrainian offensive, Reuters reported.
Earlier, Trump posted on the social media platform X that the USA was ready to help Iran. He wrote, “ Iran is looking at FREEDOM , perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
Why did X replace the Iran flag emoji?
Elon Musk’s X has already meddled amid the ongoing unrest in Iran. The country’s flag emoji on the platform was changed ; the Islamic Republic’s emblem was replaced with the symbol of the lion and sun.
The change came after Twenmoji, the open-source emoji system used by X, okayed a user request. The updated emoji reportedly started appearing on the web version on Friday.
The lion and sun symbol was used on Iran’s flag for centuries. However, it was replaced with the red emblem after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The older symbol has been used by protesters and opposition leaders to display resistance against the regime. However, the change in the flag on X cannot be seen by protesters on the ground because of the internet blackout.
“It’s a digital version of conquering a building and pulling down the old flag, and trying to put a new flag, that was essentially the symbolising they were going for,” historian Reza H Akbari, who is also an analyst on Iran at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera. “The power of these types of moves is quite readily contested in mid- and long-term effects… But it could provide momentary excitement [for protesters on the ground if they can see it] though it’s very hard to gauge the amount of popular support.”
When Musk responded to Khamenei
On January 4, Musk responded to a post by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that said “we will not give in to the enemy” by suggesting in Farsi that he was delusional.
While Musk’s moves have gained some support amid critics of the regime, the impact on the ground remains to be seen.
“I doubt he [Musk] cares about Iran per se. But he wants to gin up more traffic for X, and this is one way to do it," Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University, told Al Jazeera.
How tense is the situation in Iran?
The protests began in Iran on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
More than 10,600 people have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran to cross-check information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. Firstpost has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Online videos sent out of Iran, likely using Starlink satellite transmitters, purportedly showed demonstrators gathering in northern Tehran’s Punak neighbourhood. There, it appeared authorities shut off streets, with protesters waving their lit mobile phones. Others banged metal while fireworks went off, reports The Associated Press.
In Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, some 725 kilometres (450 miles) northeast of Tehran, footage purported to show protesters confronting security forces. Protests also appeared to happen in Kerman, 800 kilometres (500 miles) southeast of Tehran.
Iranian state television on Sunday morning (January 11) had correspondents appear on the streets in several cities to show calm areas, with a date stamp shown on screen. Tehran and Mashhad were not included.
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting trouble and called for a nationwide rally on Monday to condemn “terrorist actions led by the United States and Israel” in Iran, state media reported.
Is the Trump-Musk relationship on the mend?
The relationship between Musk and Trump has swung back and forth since Musk backed Trump’s successful presidential run and later spearheaded major reductions in the federal workforce.
The pair had a public falling-out last year as Musk opposed Trump’s signature tax bill. Criticising the bill, Musk said that, if passed, it would add trillions of dollars to the national deficit and “undermine” the work he did as the head of Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, and its efforts to cut government spending. Musk left Doge in late May.
However, the entrepreneur appears to have rekindled his relationship with the Trump administration. Musk and Trump were seen dining together at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort this month, and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth is scheduled to visit a SpaceX facility in Texas on Monday.
With inputs from agencies