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SpaceX’s Starlink internet constellation deemed ‘a license to print money’
According to a draft paper written by networking researcher and professor Mark Handley, SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite constellation has the potential to significantly disrupt the global networking economy and infrastructure and do so with as little as a third of the initial proposal’s 4425 satellites in orbit.
A step or so further, Dr. Handley (according to a University College London colleague) suspects that a network like that proposed by SpaceX could rapidly become “a license to print money” thanks to the tangible benefits it would provide financial institutions and banks – as of today, shaving mere milliseconds off of communications latency can be a serious competitive advantage for traders.
The three LEO constellation planes (not including the seven thousand VLEO in the latest filing) pic.twitter.com/btX0pLQAzc
— Andrew Moore (@awm22) September 25, 2018
Asked to condense his argument into a few sentences, Dr. Handley’s colleague (Reddit /u/davoloid) described his excitement as such.
A Professor in Computer Science [Mark Handley] who specializes in how networks work has done a simulation of Starlink based on the available information. It will make long distance links very fast, as in, a short delay in sending a message, which we call latency. That’s very important to banks and similar companies, who always want to have the fastest information. They pay a lot of money to create networks, often private ones rather than through regular commercial providers. Even with the first phase of 1600 satellites, there will be big revenues for SpaceX.” – Reddit /u/davoloid, 11/2/18
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- SpaceX’s first two Starlink prototype satellites are pictured here before their inaugural launch, showing off a thoroughly utilitarian bus and several advanced components. (SpaceX)
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- A beautiful string of Iridium NEXT satellites deployed into the sunrise. (SpaceX)
Judging from the recent past of a practice known as High-Frequency Trading (HFT), where algorithms take over trading in financial markets and operate at speeds on the order of trades per millisecond, the highly volatile industry has already reached its conclusion. This is to say that HFT went from a wildly disruptive and lucrative technological advantage to a fundamental part of the world’s ever-changing financial infrastructure in just a few decades.
“The story about [HFT] is done. It’s a mature industry now, as much an embedded feature of our society as mutual funds or the income tax.” – Tim Worstall, 2017
“HFTs are still involved in the speed race and sometimes even race to pick off their market maker brethren. While it may be more expensive and more competitive today for HFT to pick off the slow traders, make no mistake, they have not gone away.” – Themis Trading, 2018
Much like electricity, the internet, and railroads went from kings of profit to marginal and tedious enterprises, it seems that HFT has gone from a nascent and fickle technology to a basic component of global infrastructure. As such, it is in no way, shape, or form “dead”. Just like step-change advancements in technology have forced service-based companies to upgrade or die, it seems that the availability of Starlink (or any comparable interconnected internet constellation) will create a massive imbalance between financial institutions that adopt early and those that do not or cannot.
If that ends up being the case, there will undoubtedly be an extraordinary surge in competitive financial infrastructure investment, with institutions desperately pursuing new ways to remain competitive (leveling the playing field vs. a shortcut to the front). Dr. Handley’s draft paper, accompanying video, and colleague’s clear excitement about the possibilities demonstrate (at least theoretically) that even just the first third (37%) of SpaceX’s preliminary 4425 satellite Starlink constellation would exhibit dramatic latency improvements between most conceivable access points.
The first step’s first step
With all 4425 satellites in place, the benefits approach or even surpass theoretical best-case statistics for literal straight-line fiber optic cables. Of course, SpaceX’s true proposal includes yet another 7520 very low Earth orbit (VLEO) Starlink satellites (~350 km) that would more than double the bandwidth available while potentially cutting another huge chunk out of the already unsurpassable latency performance of LEO Starlink (~1100-1300 km).
Of course, a massive amount of work remains before SpaceX before any of the above futures can or are even technically able to come to fruition. Aside from regulatory difficulties and concerns about space debris from a potential ~12,000+ new satellites, SpaceX will have to go one or even two magnitudes beyond what the status quo of satellite manufacturing believes is achievable, mass producing and launching satellites in volumes that will dwarf anything undertaken in the history of spaceflight. Still, if anyone is going to accomplish such an extraordinary feat, one would be hard-pressed to find a better bet than SpaceX.
Watch an animation of Starlink created by Dr. Mark Handley here.
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Elon Musk has acknowledged that early discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could bring the company into his ambitious Terafab semiconductor project, signaling a possible partnership with the world’s leading contract chipmaker.
Musk confirmed that early talks are underway, but as of right now, they are “just discussions.” There is no confirmation of a deal nor dismissal of the possibility of one, leaving open the prospect of one of the largest advanced-chip collaborations under discussion in the U.S.
@wholemars Just discussions, but something may come of it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The report that speculated on potential discussions between Terafab and TSMC comes from Tim Culpan, who outlined a few ways the collaboration could operate. One is TSMC using the project as an “anchor customer” for future facilities in Texas, potentially contributing process expertise, operational know-how, or capacity while Terafab provides capital, long-term purchase commitments, or both.
Tesla and SpaceX jointly developed the Terafab project, with Intel already participating on the tech side. Elon Musk announced the project in March, and it intends to produce more than one terawatt of AI compute capacity annually once fully built.
Company statements place the first phase at approximately $16.8 billion in cost, with later filings pointing to a total that could reach well into the tens of billions across multiple stages.
Intel joined the effort in April 2026 and is expected to supply its 14A manufacturing process for the full-scale plant.
Musk has said existing suppliers, including Samsung and TSMC, remain important for near-term needs; Tesla already has production arrangements with Samsung for AI5 and AI6 chips, but that future demand from Optimus robots, Cybercab vehicles, and planned space-based data centers will eventually exceed what the global industry can currently deliver.
Terafab is positioned as the long-term answer to that projected shortfall, and Tesla did something similar during COVID to avoid a chip shortage. This is just a much larger-scale solution.
If the partnership were to materialize, it would add TSMC’s industry-leading strategies to a project that already combines Tesla’s and SpaceX’s capital and offtake with Intel’s process technology. For now, the only public confirmation is Musk’s brief acknowledgement that conversations are occurring.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi service hours by pushing the time back by one hour, keeping the ride-hailing service operational until 11 p.m., one hour later than previously.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the change and offered a specific reason the expansion has been gradual: the system still needs to reliably avoid small pets that are difficult to see after dark, as they commonly blend into the color of the road, especially when they’re grey.
The latest adjustment restores only a fraction of the operating window the service once held. When paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025, vehicles ran from 6 a.m. to midnight.
In September 2025, Tesla lengthened the day to a 2 a.m. close, producing a 20-hour window that stayed in place for most of the following year. By early August of this year, the cutoff had already been pulled back; an August 26 update formalized hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. across Austin and several other markets.
The October move to 11 p.m. therefore leaves the Austin day one hour shorter than the original launch schedule and three hours shorter than the 2025 peak.
Musk addressed the constraint directly after the announcement. “The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” he wrote. “Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”
Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm.
The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The example points to a low-contrast perception problem in which a small animal can blend into the road surface under limited lighting.
Tesla’s vehicles rely on cameras and neural-network processing rather than lidar; Musk has previously argued that advanced vision software can extract useful information even in low light by analyzing photon counts, but the pet-detection case remains the stated limiter in later hours.
The modest schedule change arrives alongside faster growth in the purpose-built Cybercab fleet. Texas registration data tracked by observers showed the Austin Cybercab count rising sharply in recent weeks, reaching 169 vehicles after more than 100 were added in a short span.
Tesla has indicated that a broader shift toward 24-hour operation is tied to the upcoming FSD v15 software release expected this month on Robotaxi vehicles. Until that capability is validated for the edge cases Musk described, the company continues to add service time incrementally rather than jumping straight to overnight coverage.
The one-hour extension gives Austin riders a later option for evening trips while the underlying detection work continues.
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
Tesla reveals early Robotaxi charging strategy, showing scrappy DNA
