Elon Musk says SpaceX has no need for additional capital and will be buying back shares.
This must mean that the over 3 million Starlink customers that they have now and likely 5 million by the end of the year make SpaceX consistently profitable.
SpaceX is adding about 1500 Starlink gen 2 mini satellites for the rest of this year on top of the 6000 Starlink satellites in orbit now.
SpaceX should have the Super Heavy Starship operating and landing early next year. This will enable SpaceX to increase the number of size of Starlink satellites launched to orbit by perhaps 10-20 times next year. SpaceX has a Starlink dish factory which will increase the rate of dish deployment. SpaceX could have over 30 million Starlink customers in 2025 and perhaps over a 100 millon in 2026. SpaceX could be making $100-200 billion in revenue in 2026. This could be 80%+ profit. $80 billion in profit with over 100% growth rates could see SpaceX be the most valuable company at over $8 trillion of valuation.
$80 billion of annual profit with a 100 PE multiple is $8 trillion.
$160 billion of annual profit with a 50 PE multiple would be $8 trillion.
SpaceX has no need for additional capital and will actually be buying back shares.
We do liquidity rounds for employees and investors every ~6 months.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2024
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
I think scaling up the number of internet subscribers and multiplying by $100 on this timescale is probably over optimistic but there are massive alternative revenue sources that go with the total dominance of orbital launch and satellite mass production + StarLink/Starshield laser linked constellation in place.
One they discussed years ago is long distance data transfer by laser link in direct competition with fiber.
One not much discussed is the massive potential of 24/7/365 observation of everywhere on the planet across the spectrum both active and passive. They can basically watch everything all the time and this firehose of data can be handled by Starlink and the new generations of AI data centers. Stored Observation of everywhere all the time becomes an AI searchable and analyzable database.
Enormous military and intelligence agency potential. Space Force basically becomes a SpaceX division both built on it’s tech and there to protect it officially.
Direct to Mobile device has enormous potential. It enables IoT anywhere with no more tech than a cheap cell phone. This interacts with X, payments, finance, banking, money transfer, summoning robotaxis and other transport etc.
If it comes to that, Starlink being used to spy and military purposes, expect some country to cause a Kessler Syndrome, destroying the whole of SpaceX sat system and making Low Earth Orbit impossible for Starships to pass safely.
How about you think of the good, peaceful purposes?
If SpaceX handles 99% of all human mass to orbit, I don’t think anyone else will be capable of doing significant damage to their Constellation assets.
What I described is immense value for military and intelligence purposes but also a titanic amount of data for AI to turn into commercial and humanitarian value. I think this is a good peaceful purpose.
Did you ever see the movie Hotel Rwanda? The scene I think of is when the main character is desperate to come up with some shred of a reason to convince a warlord not to murder thousands of people he was protecting. All he can think of is a barely plausible lie. He points up. He says in a conspiratorial tone the Americans have satellites that are watching everything. You will need a witness to defend your character when there are trials for genocide.
A world where SpaceX is watching everything has genuine moral advantages over a world where no one is watching.
Now imagine what that revenue will translate into when they use it to start building orbital, lunar, Martian and other off-world infrastructure and settlements, leveraging their launcher and soon AI and robotic supremacy.
At the beginning, tho’, it will look like a net loss. We have nothing in those places and everything needs to be built and paid beforehand.
But when things start moving and the settlements start sending significant amount of people and bots, and they start mining and producing stuff, things will change.
It’s doubtful we will see a return in the form of materials and goods anytime soon. Except maybe, expensive souvenirs.
No, the return will be mostly in information and by creating a new economy in the heavens, with things delivered there but paid here.
Zero last mile infrastructure ISP provider to much of the world strikes me as a rather profitable business.
Starlink cost of $120/ month * 100 million subscribers (worldwide) = $144 billion in annual revenue.
Unlikely, yes their value will increase by a lot in the future, especially when they will prove that Starship works, but other giants will also grow, especially companies working on AI products. When/If SpaceX start designing, building asteroid mining machines and get into mining business and make it profitable then it will gain many trillions of dollars in valuation. But just sending satellites, cargo into space + internet won’t be enough to be nr 1.
In late 2020’s we will see tons of new competitors and also new concepts like for example China’s Electromagnetic Railgun which can launch cargo into space. It may disrupt traditional rocket companies.
https://newatlas.com/space/china-railgun-spacecraft-orbit/
I think Elon said that when SpaceX goes public, Tesla share holders will be given the ability to purchase SpaceX shares either as a special class or have some other advantage (to reward their support).
Who cares if they are not a publicly traded company with common shares available through the typical outlets? If I can’t get rich off them and influence them as a shareholder, they are but a statistic.
They deserve this win. Incredible performance on a problem nobody else has solved.
Hopefully the employees get a decent slice of the pie.
To keep growing, they need to identify what payloads will provide value after the starlink system is fully served.
Maybe that’s space solar? What else requires huge mass in space and has an immediate business model?
Hotels?
Brian you are being too optimistic about starship. They are still figuring out how to preserve the heat tiles during reentry. Once starship is ready for deployment, then it will take another year or so to reach 20 operational starships.
So a 10x in 2026 in terms of launches?
Sure 10x in 2026. You are assuming that they need full reuse of Starship to launch Starlink satellites. They most certainly do not. It is perfectly reasonable to launch Starlink satellites to orbit while finishing Starship reuse, in fact not launching satellites is a waste of money.
No, Brian wrote that SpaceX would 10x the launch capability by 2025, that’s what I am opposing. It will take at least another year to reach that milestone because it would indeed require a reusable starship.
The customer growth projections are also too optimistic… And the there is the unfortunate fact that SpaceX only has permission to operate ~7500 satellites at any given time. But those are separate issues..