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SpaceX's main Starlink constellation competitor is running out of money
OneWeb, the only pressing competitor facing SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet constellation, has reportedly begun to consider filing for bankruptcy shortly before the London-based company completed its third dedicated launch.
Following the completion of its first full 34-satellite launch with a Russian Soyuz rocket on February 7th, OneWeb managed to complete a second launch on March 22nd just a few days after Bloomberg revealed its bankruptcy concerns. OneWeb now has 74 ~150-kg (330 lb) satellites in orbit – roughly 11% of its initial 650-satellite constellation. Like SpaceX, OneWeb’s goal is to manufacture and launch an unprecedented number of high-performance small satellites for a per-spacecraft cost that would have previously been inconceivable.
SpaceX’s Starlink, OneWeb, Telesat, Amazon Project Kuiper, and other prospective low Earth orbit (LEO) communications constellations all aim to provide high-speed, low-latency internet services to users almost anywhere on the surface of Earth. First and foremost, those constellations would seek to provide service to those who want broadband internet but have yet to be connected through traditional ground-based means by existing internet service providers (ISPs) that are either unable or unwilling to do so. Simply put, that is not an easy goal and OneWeb now appears to be heading towards sunset despite the wealth of resources it at one point possessed.
Requiring numerous revolutions in satellite manufacturing, antenna production, and launch vehicle affordability, as well as a vast and complex network of ground terminals, numerous companies have tried and failed to rise to the challenge over the decades. Original Globalstar, Teledesic, and Iridium constellations all raised more than $10 billion in the 1990s under the promise of blanketing the Earth with internet from space. All wound up bankrupt at one point or another.
Globalstar eventually completed an operational constellation, as did Iridium. Piggybacking off of many painful lessons-learned, Iridium even managed to become profitable, stable, and sustainable enough to fund an entirely new replacement constellation, launched on eight SpaceX Falcon 9 missions and completed in January 2019.
Short of a miracle, especially given the imminent economic catastrophe now facing much of the world, OneWeb appears to be close to becoming the latest body on a very tall pile. As if OneWeb learned nothing from the fates of those that came before, it has somehow managed to run out of money (or nearly so) despite having raised more than $3.4 billion in just four years. How OneWeb managed to turn $3.4 billion into a single factory and ~75 satellites in orbit is undoubtedly a mystery worth demystifying but for now, all that’s known is that the company is concerned about coronavirus impacts and anticipates imminent layoffs on top of future launch and production delays.
Ever the lone wolf, SpaceX forges ahead
Speaking earlier this month at the SATELLITE 2020 conference, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk frankly noted that Starlink – SpaceX’s exceptionally ambitious entrant to the LEO satellite internet race – was a work in progress with a real chance of failure. He made it clear that he was aware the constellation is now navigating a graveyard that has brought numerous companies with far more funding to their knees – now possibly including OneWeb. Nevertheless, SpaceX has shown no signs of slowing down. It’s possible – if not all but guaranteed – that the company’s Redmond, Washington-based has already been severely impacted by the coronovirus pandemic, given that the state is one of the US epicenters.
The company’s Los Angeles rocket factory is also likely to begin to experience major impacts as the city starts to take pandemic-related threats seriously. SpaceX’s Florida launch facilities and Texas Starship factory and development facilities are much less likely to be harmed in the interim. It’s another question entirely whether continuing to operate large factories and facilities is the right thing to do for SpaceX’s employees and the regions they reside in, whether states intervene or governments govern.
Nevertheless, thanks to the fact that SpaceX’s Washington factory has been building satellites 50% faster than it can launch them, it’s likely that at least one or two (if not several) launches worth of Starlink satellites are stockpiled and waiting to fly. The company’s next Starlink mission (Starlink L7 or V1 L6) is expected to launch no earlier than (NET) April 2020. The global pandemic could potentially create some open space in the company’s near-term manifest, but it could just as easily make SpaceX’s US launch activities next to impossible.
SpaceX has already delivered 360 Starlink satellites to orbit, 300 of which were launched in the last four months alone and all but ~10 of which are believed to still be operational. Barring increasingly likely delays from the growing pandemic, SpaceX anticipated it could have enough spacecraft in orbit (~500-600 satellites) to begin serving internet to customers in Canada and the northern US as early as this summer. For now, we’ll have to wait and see how things shake out in the coming weeks.
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Tesla owners who tap Emergency Drive Away for fun are in for a surprise
Tapping Activate on Tesla’s Emergency Drive Away reportedly triggers a $539 service bill without moving.
Tesla owners who press Activate on Emergency Drive Away may be on the hook for a service bill even if their car never leaves the Supercharger stall.
Yaro, who posts about Tesla service cases on X as @Tutrifour, said a customer called after tapping Activate while still plugged into a Supercharger. The owner was about to pull away, remembered the cable was still connected and stopped. The car never moved, but the touchscreen showed a red alert reading “Emergency Drive Away has been activated” with “Service is required” underneath. A Service Mode screenshot showed the active alert BMS_a228_EmergencyDriveAwayServiceRequired, which Yaro said only Tesla Service can clear.
Here is a lesson to Tesla owners. Don’t press Activate on the new Emergency Drive Away feature on your Tesla because service charges $539 to inspect the charge port and to clear the alert. Yes, even if you didn’t move the car an inch. https://t.co/NZJENw4SQv
— Yaro (@Tutrifour) October 30, 2026
The cost of clearing it was the bigger surprise. “Don’t press Activate on the new Emergency Drive Away feature on your Tesla because service charges $539 to inspect the charge port and to clear the alert. Yes, even if you didn’t move the car an inch,” Yaro wrote. The $539 figure comes from that single case, and Tesla has not published a set price for the inspection or commented on the post. Yaro also noted that the car would still charge with the alert on screen.
Tesla launched Emergency Drive Away on October 1 with software update 2026.38.3, letting drivers pull away from a U.S. Supercharger with the cable still attached, as Teslarati reported. To use it, a driver shifts into Drive while connected, holds the brake and taps Activate. The prompt warns that driving with the cable connected will damage the vehicle and the Supercharger, and that short camera recordings will be shared with Tesla.
Tesla Charging has been clear about what follows a real activation. Repairs to a Supercharger stall can run up to $25,000 depending on the site, a service visit for the car’s charge port is mandatory, and deliberate misuse “will invoke additional penalties.” What the company had not spelled out is that the service requirement is triggered the moment Activate is pressed, not the moment the cable breaks away.
From an engineering standpoint, that is the cautious choice. Once Activate is pressed, the car cannot be sure the charge port latch was not stressed, so flagging it for inspection removes the guesswork. It also means the button carries a price on its own, which is a stronger deterrent against casual use than any warning screen.
Customer called because they have an active alert after tapping ACTIVATE on the new Emergency Drive Away feature. They didn’t actually drive away but were about to until they “remembered” they had the charge cable connected.
This alert can only be cleared by Tesla Service. https://t.co/SkHyJJPFwU
— Yaro (@Tutrifour) October 28, 2026
The report follows the feature’s first known real world use, when a driver in Austin during F1 weekend appeared to trigger it by accident and dragged the Supercharger cable along with the car. The Reddit user who filmed it said the driver seemed to have only half read the prompts.
For owners, the takeaway is to treat the red prompt as a stop sign. If it appears after shifting out of Park by mistake, shift back and unplug the normal way from the touchscreen, the Tesla app or the button on the charge handle. Activate is meant for moments when staying at the stall is the bigger risk, and Tesla is now pricing it that way.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk calls Earth’s data centers “peanuts” next to what SpaceX is planning in orbit
Elon Musk says SpaceX capex efficiency is underestimated as orbital data centers loom by 2028.
Elon Musk is pushing back on one of the biggest worries hanging over SpaceX stock. In a reply on X on Sunday, Musk said the company’s capital expenditure efficiency is severely underestimated. He was responding to a Milk Road Stocks post citing analyst Kyle Reidhead, who estimates SpaceX will need to spend roughly $470 billion over the next five quarters.
Reidhead built that figure around the target SpaceX set on its third quarter earnings call: 13 gigawatts or more of compute by the end of 2027. In his breakdown, Nvidia captures 83 to 89 percent of the spending. SpaceX ended the quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute and guided to $35 billion to $40 billion in fourth quarter capex, as Teslarati reported.
Musk did not attach a number to his claim, but the earnings call shows the argument. CFO Bret Johnsen said new compute currently pays for itself in under a year at today’s pricing, and Musk said that window could shrink to six months next year. Using that pace, Reidhead argues about $230 billion of the $470 billion could come from operating cash flow and about $60 billion from SpaceX’s roughly $90 billion cash pile, leaving around $180 billion to borrow. Musk confirmed last week that SpaceX had already closed a new $40 billion debt raise to buy GPUs.
The ground buildout is not the end goal. It is what is meant to pay for the move to orbit. Replying on Friday to charts built from Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire’s SpaceX model, Musk wrote that “Terrestrial compute will be peanuts compared to orbital compute,” adding that orbital compute deployed per month “probably exceeds terrestrial around the end of 2028 and then far exceeds it in 2029.”
Maguire’s model shows how steep that path is. It has capex climbing from $88 billion this year to $290 billion in 2027 and $369 billion in 2028, with SpaceX burning $77.8 billion in cash this year and $122.6 billion next year before turning $114.9 billion cash positive in 2028. Musk’s response to the model was, “I think we can do better.”
The orbital half runs through Starmind. SpaceX plans to operate up to 1 million AI satellites flying in clusters of about 10, linked by roughly 10 terabits of bandwidth, with deployment of thousands of units starting as soon as late 2027 out of its Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, according to SpaceX’s space safety page. Musk has said each Starmind spacecraft will carry more than 250 kW of solar power.
Getting there depends on launch volume. Maguire’s model assumes 250 Starship flights in 2028, up from two this year and 38 next year. The nearer test is financial: SpaceX guided to $33 billion to $37 billion in first quarter 2027 revenue, more than double the $14.58 billion it booked in Q3, and Musk reposted that guidance again on Sunday morning.
Elon Musk
SpaceX President to gift Trump Accounts her SpaceX stock
Gwynne Shotwell’s 2 million SpaceX shares are headed to children’s Trump Accounts starting this December.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Friday that more than 2 million SpaceX shares belonging to her and her husband, Robert, will be distributed to children’s Trump Accounts in December, turning a pledge she made over the summer into an actual transfer. “Robert and I are thrilled that our gift of over 2 million shares of SpaceX stock will be distributed to children’s Trump accounts in December!” Shotwell wrote on X, adding that the shares are “transferring to escrow as we speak.”
The first round goes to children aged 11 to 17 who live in ZIP codes where the median family income is $57,000 or less, along with kids in ZIP codes with too few residents for the Census to report that figure. Shotwell said those families should receive a notice by Monday, Reuters reported.
A second gift is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks. That round will cover eligible children in military families serving overseas, children in foster care, and more kids in Texas counties near the Shotwells’ home where median family income is $90,000 or less. Elon Musk replied to the announcement with “Cool” and a heart emoji.
Shotwell first announced the donation on July 6, less than a month after SpaceX priced its record IPO at $135 per share on the Nasdaq. IPO filings showed Shotwell owned about 12.6 million SpaceX shares, Quartz reported at the time, which makes the gift roughly one sixth of her stake. At the roughly $146 per share used to value Musk’s own pledge earlier this month, 2 million shares are worth about $290 million.
How the stock would actually reach the accounts had been an open question since July. Treasury guidance acknowledged that stock donations could flow into Trump Accounts, but it did not explain the mechanics for a program whose contributions default into an S&P 500 index fund. Shotwell thanked the Treasury, the IRS, the Dell Foundation, Greater Horizons, Invest America and the law firms Morgan Lewis and Gibson Dunn for “working over the past few months to make this happen.”
The transfer also works as a dry run for a far larger gift. On October 19, Musk said he would give one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America next year and called it “the first of many.” With roughly 72 million children in the country, that pledge is worth about $10.5 billion. President Donald Trump thanked Musk the same day and said the shares would go through Trump Accounts, though neither SpaceX nor the Treasury has published how or when that distribution will happen.
Shotwell’s recipients also fill a gap in the program itself. Trump Accounts launched on July 4, and the $1,000 Treasury deposit only goes to babies born between 2025 and 2028. Teenagers aged 11 to 17 receive no government seed money, so for many of the families getting a notice on Monday, SpaceX stock will be the first asset in the account. The accounts convert into retirement accounts when the child turns 18.
Tesla owners who tap Emergency Drive Away for fun are in for a surprise
Elon Musk calls Earth’s data centers “peanuts” next to what SpaceX is planning in orbit
