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SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet gains 750,000 subscribers in nine months

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2 years ago

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SpaceX says its Starlink satellite internet service has surpassed one million active subscribers just two years after its first limited beta release.

SpaceX began launching operational Starlink satellites in November 2019. A little over three years later, the company has successfully launched more than 3600 Starlink satellites, of which some 3000 are operational and ready to serve customers. That network expansion – unprecedented in the history of spaceflight and producing a satellite constellation a magnitude larger than the next largest – has also allowed SpaceX to significantly increase the number of active users it can serve.

In June 2022, CEO Elon Musk reported in an all-hands meeting that SpaceX’s Starlink internet had “nearly” 500,000 users. Just six months later, SpaceX says that figure has doubled to “more than 1,000,000 active subscribers,” indicating an average of roughly 2600 new subscribers per day throughout the second half of 2022. In the relatively tiny world of satellite broadband internet service, a million subscribers makes SpaceX directly comparable to companies that have been serving satellite internet for decades just two years after its first offering entered beta.

In the US, Hughes Network is SpaceX’s largest competitor and currently has a bit less than 1.3 million subscribers in the Americas. Cloudflare data suggests that only half of Starlink’s far more international customer base is located in the United States, indicating that SpaceX has secured almost 40% as many subscribers after offering its competing service for just two years. That growth – roughly 250,000 new subscribers per quarter since March 2022 – is the exact opposite of what virtually every other satellite internet provider has been experiencing for the last several years, most of which are slowly losing subscribers instead of gaining them.

Comments from CEO Elon Musk and actions made by SpaceX indicate that the company is unlikely to drastically slow that growth anytime soon. In 2021, Musk noted that SpaceX would only truly struggle with congestion once Starlink had “several million” subscribers. In late 2020, SpaceX also applied for FCC permission to operate up to five million user terminals (dishes that connect to Starlink) just in the United States.

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Starlink’s design makes prioritizing a country or region essentially impossible. Instead of the large geostationary satellites most competitors operate tens of thousands of kilometers above Earth’s surface, where they more or less hover above a region of choice, Starlink satellites operate just 550 kilometers (~340 mi) up. At that altitude, each satellite orbits the Earth every 95 minutes and only spends a few minutes (or even seconds) over any given country. That strongly encourages SpaceX to serve customers in as many countries as possible, each of which has its own painful market entrance process for a new communications provider.

After years of work, SpaceX’s government relations team has secured permission to operate Starlink in roughly a quarter of all countries on Earth. Combined, those countries represent more than 1.5 billion people, 19% of the global population.

But Starlink likely only needs to convert a minuscule fraction of those people into customers to be a worthwhile and financially sustainable pursuit for SpaceX. The total capacity of the first 4405-satellite Starlink constellation can only be guessed at, but roughly estimating SpaceX’s total Starlink revenue is much easier. The cost of a subscription varies widely from country to country but Cloudflare indicates that the vast majority of subscribers live in countries where it costs around $100-110 per month and around $600 for a subsidized dish. Even accounting for SpaceX footing some of the bill for Starlink service in Ukraine, the network is almost certainly already generating more than a billion dollars of revenue per year

While the FCC is making it far from easy, SpaceX is already preparing to begin building a second-generation Starlink Gen2 constellation with nearly 30,000 satellites, each of which could launch with almost a magnitude more usable bandwidth than Gen 1 satellites. If SpaceX can continue to find new customers around the world, a million subscribers using Starlink Gen1 while the network is less than 70% complete imply that the most capable version of Starlink Gen2 could serve roughly 10-12 million subscribers at minimum. Assuming SpaceX does not substantially lower its revenue, the recurring revenue from 12 million Gen2 subscribers could be $14.5 billion per year.

Reaching Starlink profitability will be an even bigger challenge – and one that CEO Elon Musk has (perhaps overzealously) indicated could bankrupt SpaceX if the company attempts to do so with its Gen1 design. But securing a million active subscribers in two years and some 750,000 in the last nine months arguably indicates that SpaceX is on a good path and should allow the company to either decrease its fundraising burden or increase the reach of future spending on R&D and expansion.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk says Tesla Robotaxi launch will force companies to license Full Self-Driving

“The automakers keep being told that this isn’t real or that just buying some hardware from Nvidia will solve it. As Tesla robotaxis become widespread and their other solutions don’t work, they will naturally turn to us.”

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1 hour ago

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June 10, 2025

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the automaker’s Robotaxi platform launch later this month will essentially force other companies to license Full Self-Driving to achieve their own goals of achieving autonomy.

Musk’s statement comes as a video captured today showed the first Tesla Robotaxi test mules on public streets in Austin, Texas, just one day after the City officially listed the company as an autonomous vehicle operator.

A prediction by investing YouTube and Tesla community member Dave Lee stated that “at least one automaker by end of year” will license Full Self-Driving from the Musk-led company, as it will give rivals the confidence to use the software to run their own self-driving operations.

Lee detailed his theory by stating that the company that chooses to commit to FSD licensing will not be able to integrate the hardware and sell those units immediately. Instead, it will take two years or so to solve the engineering and design applications.

First Tesla driverless robotaxi spotted in the wild in Austin, TX

Musk revealed his true thoughts on other automakers’ attempts at vehicle autonomy, and said many are being told that Robotaxi is not real or that they can solve their problems with hardware orders to Nvidia.

He went on to say that companies will be forced to turn to Tesla at some point or another, because Robotaxi will be widespread and their solutions to figuring out an effective deployment will prove to be failures:

“The automakers keep being told that this isn’t real or that just buying some hardware from Nvidia will solve it. As Tesla robotaxis become widespread and their other solutions don’t work, they will naturally turn to us.”

Musk has not been shy to respond to speculation regarding the video of the Robotaxi, which was shared on X earlier today. This is perhaps one of the more fiery things he revealed. He seems ultra-confident in what Tesla will prove and achieve in the near future with the launch of the Robotaxi platform.

Many believe it will be rolled out this month. Bloomberg reported recently that Tesla was internally aiming for June 12. The company has not directly responded to these rumors.

Tesla has discussed on several occasions that it is in talks with an automaker about licensing Full Self-Driving, but it has never revealed who. The company first revealed discussions with another automaker in early 2024 when Elon Musk said:

“We’re in conversations with one major automaker regarding licensing FSD. It really just becomes a case of having them use the same cameras and inference computer and licensing our software. Once it becomes obvious that if you don’t have this (FSD) in a car, nobody wants your car. It’s a smart car… The people don’t understand all cars will need to be smart cars, or you will not sell, or nobody would buy it. Once that becomes obvious, I think licensing becomes not optional.”

Tesla confirms it is in talks with major automaker for potential FSD licensing

Many, including us, suspected that Ford was the company that Tesla was speaking of due to Musk’s relationship with Jim Farley, which resulted in the legacy automaker being the first major car company to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), which gave them access to the Supercharging Network.

This catalyzed an onslaught of companies choosing to make the same move as Tesla had truly set itself apart in terms of charging infrastructure.

Companies may be forced to make a similar decision if it can make the same type of statement with the rollout of Robotaxi.

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Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reveals new details about Robotaxi rollout

The first Tesla Robotaxi unit was spotted in Austin earlier today, and CEO Elon Musk is revealing some cool new details.

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3 hours ago

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June 10, 2025

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed new details about the company’s relatively imminent rollout of the Robotaxi platform as the suspected launch date of June 12 continues to near.

Earlier today, the first video showing the first driverless Tesla Robotaxi in Austin was shared on X, just a day after the City officially listed the company as an autonomous vehicle operator on its website. Tesla is listed as a company in the “Testing” phase.

The initial details of the Robotaxi are being revealed by Musk, who is carefully releasing small tidbits that seem to show the capabilities of the entire Tesla fleet, and not necessarily just the vehicles that will be involved in the initial rollout in Austin.

First Tesla driverless robotaxi spotted in the wild in Austin, TX

His first tidbit is one that many Tesla owners and fans will already know: many Teslas are capable of this driveless performance, but Full Self-Driving is not yet refined to the point where the software is quite ready to handle it. Current versions are robust, but not prepared for driverless navigation. The hardware, however, will enable Teslas to be Robotaxis, even if they’re already purchased by owners:

This is one of the biggest advantages Tesla has over other vehicle makers. Simply put, the Over-the-Air software updates that will roll out to FSD users will eventually make their cars into Robotaxis as well.

However, Musk shed some details on the version of FSD that is being run in these new Robotaxis that were spotted. Musk said that the version these Robotaxis are running is a new version, but will soon “merge to main branch.”

There is also an even newer version that has four times the parameters as this newer version that the test-stage Robotaxis are using, but Musk admits that this needs significant refinement before it is released to the public.

As of now, Tesla is simply teasing the actual launch date of the Robotaxi program, but Bloomberg reported earlier this month that it will occur on June 12.

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First Tesla driverless robotaxi spotted in the wild in Austin, TX

The short clip suggests that Tesla may be ramping up its preparations for its robotaxi rollout in Austin.

Published

5 hours ago

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June 10, 2025

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Credit: @TerrapinTerpene/X

A recent video posted on X has provided a first look at Tesla’s driverless robotaxi, which is expected to be deployed in Austin, Texas, this month. The vehicle was a new Tesla Model Y, which was followed by what appeared to be a manned chase car.

The short clip suggests that Tesla may be ramping up its preparations for its robotaxi rollout in Austin.

The First Robotaxi Sighting

It was evident from the short clip that the Tesla robotaxi was operating completely driverless. In the video, which was posted on X by @TerrapinTerpene, the driverless Tesla could be seen confidently making a turn. The vehicle looked and behaved like any other car on the road, save for the fact that there was no one in the driver’s seat.

Interestingly enough, the short video also provided a teaser on where Tesla will place its “robotaxi” logo on its self-driving cars. Based on the video, the robotaxis’ logo will be tastefully placed on the front doors, making the vehicles look sleek and clean.

Initial Rollout Imminent

Recent reports have suggested that Tesla is already starting the testing phase of its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. Expectations are also high that Tesla’s initial fleet of self-driving vehicles will be utilizing a lot of teleoperation to ensure that they operate as safely as possible.

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Updates to Austin’s official website recently have hinted at Tesla’s robotaxi launch. Just this Monday, Tesla was listed as an autonomous vehicle (AV) operator on Austin’s official Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). Other AV operators listed on the site are Waymo and Zoox, among others.

Elon Musk, for his part, has noted that by the end of June, the public in Austin should be ready to take rides in Tesla robotaxis without an invitation. He also noted in late May that Tesla has been busy testing driverless cars on Austin’s city streets without any incidents.

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