The British boss of OneWeb, the satellite internet operator, is stepping down from his role less than a year after being appointed when the company was swallowed up into France’s Eutelsat group.

One source familiar with OneWeb said that Stephen Beynon’s impending departure comes at a time when the combined group is becoming “increasingly French”, with few decisions now being taken in the UK.

A rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink, OneWeb was founded in 2012 by US tech entrepreneur Greg Wyler to provide internet coverage from satellites in low earth orbit. In 2020, it filed for bankruptcy in the US after shareholder SoftBank, the Japanese investment giant, pulled its support.

Later that year, Boris Johnson’s government, apparently at the behest of his chief adviser Dominic Cummings, agreed to invest $500 million to rescue the business, with Indian telecoms billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, who last week became BT’s biggest shareholder, injecting another $500 million.

Cummings wanted it to be a British space champion, but after Johnson’s reign ended, Eutelsat acquired OneWeb in a deal billed as a merger. The UK government retained a 10.9 per cent stake and a “special share” designed to protect British interests.

Some insiders said the UK operations were being increasingly subsumed into the French owner, although another source pointed out that chief operating officer David Bath and Massimiliano Ladovaz, head of satellite operations, remain based in London.

Mittal’s company, Bharti Enterprises, retained a 21 per cent stake and he is Eutelsat’s co-chair.

The deal completed last September, when Beynon became chief executive of OneWeb and co-president of Eutelsat’s connectivity business, Eutelsat OneWeb, along with Frenchman Cyril Dujardin.

Beynon is to leave the latter role next month, leaving Dujardin as sole president. He will stand down as boss of OneWeb once a successor is in place.

Beynon and Eutelsat declined to comment.