Starlink

By Joe Supan Starlink is SpaceX's satellite internet service, and the only part of the company that's actually profitable. Last year, it generated $4.42 billion, largely subsidizing xAI's $6.35 billion losses. "There are lots of good reasons not to invest in it, but on the other hand, SpaceX has a history of defying conventional wisdom," says Eric Berger, senior space editor at Ars Technica and author of the book Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX. "It has certainly done that in launch, and it has done that in operating Starlink."While HughesNet and Viasat had offered satellite internet since

Starlink, a division of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is still the undisputed leader of the satellite internet space. It currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit. In January, Musk applied to the FCC to launch 1 million more satellites to build data centers in space. SpaceX also seems to be filing for an IPO very soon, with a reported (and ridiculous) goal of hitting a $1.75 trillion valuation. Starlink is valued at $1 trillion of that. (Another $250 billion of estimated value goes to xAI’s horny and racist chatbot Grok.)

By Jon Reed The IPO, as planned, is expected to value the company around $1.75 trillion. But not everybody agrees that the company is worth anything near that. Take the analysts at Morningstar, who looked at the company's core business lines and came up with something significantly less.An analysis published last week by Morningstar's Nicolas Owens and Suryansh Sharma put the company's value at $780 billion -- about half what SpaceX has said. They said the rocket business has the biggest upside, while Starlink will continue to be the main driver of cash for the company, although its opportun

Most smartphone connections work by bouncing signals between cell towers. There are loads of cell towers around the world, but they’re limited in rural areas, out in the ocean, or in countries with less infrastructure to detect signals. The goal of satellite internet is to connect directly from the satellite to the device on the ground. To do that, you need a line of sight to a satellite. Which means you need more of them in orbit to see everything. That’s why companies like Amazon and SpaceX’s Starlink want thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit. The more that are up there, the more groun