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SpaceX is in no rush for a Starlink IPO and that should terrify competitors
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell says that the Starlink satellite internet business is in no rush to become a separate company and pursue an IPO, and that relaxed demeanor should terrify competitor constellations and ISPs like OneWeb and Comcast.
Announced in January 2015, SpaceX has been developing a massive constellation of satellites capable of delivering high-quality broadband internet anywhere on Earth for half a decade. Known as Starlink, SpaceX launched its first dedicated satellite prototypes – known as Tintin A and B – in February 2018, serving as a very successful alpha test for the myriad technologies the company would need to master to realize the constellation’s goals. 15 months later, SpaceX launched its first batch of 60 radically-redesigned Starlink satellites – packed flat to fit in an unmodified Falcon 9 payload fairing.
Less than nine months after that first ‘v0.9’ mission, SpaceX has completed another three dedicated launches and made Starlink – now some 235 operational satellites strong – the world’s largest private satellite constellation by a huge margin. Now just two days away from its fifth Starlink launch, SpaceX’s second-in-command has revealed that the company will likely split Starlink off into its own separate company, enabling an IPO without sacrificing SpaceX’s broader freedom. However, Shotwell also made it clear that SpaceX is in no rush to do so, and that fact should strike fear into the hearts of Starlink’s many potential competitors.
Bloomberg first broke the news with a snippet revealing that SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell had told a private investor event that Starlink could eventually IPO as an independent company. While undeniably important, a SpaceX source – after confirming the news – also told Reuters reporter Joey Roulette that it would be “several years” before the company might kick off the process of a Starlink IPO.
While a seemingly small piece of information at face value, the fact that SpaceX is years away from a potential Starlink IPO implies that the company is incredibly confident in where it stands today. Given that SpaceX only started ramping up its Starlink production rates and launch cadence a handful of months ago, that apparent confidence – assuming SpaceX’s respected President and COO isn’t lying to the faces of prospective investors – is no small feat.
Thanks to that production and launch cadence ramp, SpaceX is likely in the midst of one of the most capital-straining periods its Starlink program will ever experience. As a private company, SpaceX’s balance sheets are a black box to the public, but it’s safe to say that the it’s going through – or has already gone through – a phase of “production hell” similar to what Tesla experienced when it began building Roadsters, Model S/Xs, and Model 3s.
Building satellites like cars
In less than 12 months, SpaceX has effectively gone from manufacturing zero satellites to mass-producing something like 2-4 Starlink spacecraft every single day, almost without a doubt smashing any records previously held in the industry. It’s possible that companies like Planet (now the owner of the second-largest private constellation) or Spire have built more spacecraft in a given period, but SpaceX’s satellites are at least an order of magnitude larger, on average.
Around 260 kg (570 lb) apiece, SpaceX has built and launched a total of 240 spacecraft – together weighing more than 60 metric tons (135,000 lb) – in less than nine months. Furthermore, the company not only intends to crush that average but wants (if not needs) to do so for several years without interruption.
Back in May 2019, CEO Elon Musk confidently stated that he believes SpaceX already has all the capital it needs “to build an operational [Starlink] constellation”, likely referring to at least ~1500 operational communications satellites – launches included. This is why competitors should be moderately terrified that SpaceX isn’t even privately pushing for an IPO sooner than later. Perhaps the single biggest reason modern companies pursue IPOs is to raise substantial capital – usually far more than can be practically (or quickly) raised while private when executed successfully.
A step further, “several years” should mean titanic changes for SpaceX’s Starlink constellation if everything goes as planned. In 2020, SpaceX has publicly stated that it will attempt as many as 20-24 dedicated Starlink launches, an achievement that would translate to a constellation more than 1600 satellites strong by the end of the year. SpaceX says that 24 launches (20 if the first four missions are subtracted) is enough to offer global coverage and plans to begin serving customers in the northern US and Canada as early as this summer.
As of now, SpaceX has performed three 60-satellite Starlink launches total in the last three months – two in January 2020 alone – and Starlink V1 L4 (the fourth v1.0 launch and fifth launch overall) is scheduled to lift off just two days from now on February 15th. If Musk and Shotwell are correct and SpaceX can launch at least one or two thousand satellites without raising any additional capital, the constellation – potentially reaching those numbers by early to mid-2021 – may already have hundreds of thousands of customers by the time more funding is needed. 2000 Starlink v1.0 satellites, for reference, would theoretically offer enough collective bandwidth for more than 500,000 users to simultaneously stream Netflix content in 1080p.
As of early 2019, SpaceX had raised a total of $2B in venture capital, investments, and debt. Thus, even in the unlikely event that 100% of that funding goes to Starlink, the company would ultimately have to spend $500-700M annually from 2018 to the end of 2021 to run that large pool of capital dry by the time 1000-2000 satellites are in orbit.
500,000 customers paying $50-100 per month by the end of 2021 would conservatively allow Starlink to generate $300-600M in annual revenue, excluding the likely possibility of even more lucrative government or commercial contracts. In other words, if SpaceX can accumulate an average of 20,000 paying subscribers per month between now and the end of 2021, Starlink could very well become self-sustaining at its current rate of growth – or close to it – by the time SpaceX is hurting for more funding. In a worst-case scenario, it thus appears all but certain that “several years” from now, SpaceX’s Starlink program will have at least a few thousand high-performance satellites in orbit, an extensive network of ground stations, and a large swath of alpha or beta customers by the time IPO proceedings begin.
Given that all that potential infrastructure would easily be worth at least $1-2B purely from a capital investment standpoint, Starlink’s ultimate IPO valuation – under Shotwell’s patient “maybe one day” approach – could be stratospheric.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
The Boring Company signs Abu Dhabi tunnel agreement while adding more Prufrock machines in Nashville.
The Boring Company has signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi to study underground transport and utility tunnels across the emirate, adding a second UAE city to its pipeline as it prepares to also scale up tunneling back home in Nashville.
The deal was signed Thursday at the Liveability and Investment Exhibition (LIVEX 2026) by Boring Company President Steve Davis and Maysarah Mahmoud Salim Eid, director general of the Abu Dhabi Projects and Infrastructure Centre (ADPIC), according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office. Mohamed Ali Al Shorafa, chairman of the emirate’s Department of Municipalities and Transport, attended the signing.
Under the agreement, the two sides will assess feasibility, delivery and operating models for tunnels that could carry passengers or utilities. They will also look at Abu Dhabi’s potential as a regional hub for tunneling work. The current phase is exploratory, and no construction commitment or project budget has been announced.
“Abu Dhabi provides an ideal environment to explore the next generation of underground infrastructure solutions, supported by its ambitious growth vision and strong commitment to advanced technologies,”
Davis said. He added that the company wants to assess how tunnels can “expand urban capacity more efficiently, and enable better use of available space.”
The timing lines up with the money, considering last month, The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D led by the UAE and affiliated investors, valuing the company at $23 billion, as Teslarati reported. That round came with a commitment to build more than 150 kilometers of tunnel across the UAE, separate from the Dubai Loop pilot already under contract with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority. That pilot covers 6.4 kilometers and four stations linking DIFC and Dubai Mall at a cost of about $154 million.
Back home, The Boring Company projects in Nashville are also scaling up, with the company telling local NewsChannel 5 that a third Prufrock machine could start digging the Music City Loop in late October. A fourth is also targeted before the end of the year. Two machines are already mining Nashville limestone at the same time, and work is underway on a new launch site for the third.
The company said it has made more than 300 design and performance upgrades to its original Nashville machine. It is also working with property owners on more than 40 planned stations, with approvals in place for a future Nashville International Airport connection, a downtown station near the Music City Center, and stops at residential towers and the JW Marriott.
Construction on the Music City Loop began the same evening Tennessee and federal regulators approved the project’s lease in February, and the company targeted its first operational segment for late 2026. Back in Las Vegas, The Boring Company has said it plans to double its Vegas Loop station count by year’s end.
News
SpaceX brings four astronauts home after 8 months in space, and the return was flawless
SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom returned four Crew-12 astronauts home after 237 days aboard the station.
Four Crew-12 members are back on Earth after 237 days at the International Space Station. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 50 miles west of Los Angeles at 11:34 a.m. ET on Thursday.
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev landed one day after undocking from the station’s Harmony module at 8:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday. NASA confirmed the splashdown minutes later. SpaceX had flagged the 27.5 hour trip home on X while Dragon was still firing its departure burns away from the station.
The descent ran on schedule when Freedom started a nine minute deorbit burn at 10:46 a.m. ET, then hit the thicker atmosphere about 36 minutes later at nearly five miles per second. Chutes deployed at around 18,000 feet, and four main parachutes brought the capsule down to roughly 15 mph at splashdown.
SpaceX fast boats secured Dragon before the recovery ship Shannon hoisted it onto the deck with the crew still inside. Flight surgeons on board ran initial medical checks. All four crew members will be flown ashore by helicopter and then head to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for rehabilitation.
Splashdown of Dragon confirmed! https://t.co/P2o7A3Gytf
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 8, 2026
Crew-12 launched on February 13 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, a flight that also marked the first Falcon 9 booster landing at SpaceX’s new LZ-40 pad. Over the mission, the crew completed 3,792 orbits, covered nearly 101 million miles, and carried out four spacewalks to maintain and upgrade the station.
Meir now has 440 cumulative days in space, which places her in NASA’s top 10. This was the first spaceflight for Hathaway and for Adenot, a French Air Force colonel and former helicopter pilot. Fedyaev, who spent 186 days in orbit on Crew-6 in 2023, has now flown two long duration Dragon missions.
The return closes out a busy stretch of Dragon traffic. Crew-13 arrived on October 1 aboard Crew Dragon Grace, which docked just 7 hours and 55 minutes after liftoff, the fastest launch to docking of any U.S. spacecraft in ISS history. Commander Jessica Watkins, pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov remain aboard alongside the three person Soyuz MS-29 crew.
With Crew-12 gone, the port is clear for CRS-35, a cargo Dragon carrying the final pair of ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays. NASA is holding a post-splashdown teleconference at 1:15 p.m. ET covering both the crew’s return and the upcoming cargo launch.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk shuts down talk of TSMC taking over Terafab
Musk says Tesla and SpaceX will build and run Terafab, with TSMC limited to renting.
Elon Musk has drawn a firm line around who will be in charge of Terafab, the giant chip factory Tesla and SpaceX are planning in Texas.
Musk replied to a post on X arguing that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would most likely end up owning and operating the plant. “No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that,” Musk wrote. “Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.”
In plain terms, a sublease means TSMC could rent a section of the complex to make chips, similar to a tenant renting one floor of an office tower. The building, the equipment decisions and the daily operation would stay with Tesla and SpaceX.
@herbertong @thejefflutz No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that.
Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 7, 2026
The comment shuts down speculation that started last week. On October 2, tech journalist Tim Culpan reported that TSMC was exploring ways to help run Terafab’s factories. Musk responded the next day that it was “just discussions, but something may come of it,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That left room for a scenario where the world’s largest contract chipmaker took the wheel. Musk’s latest post closes that door.
Some background helps explain why this matters. Tesla designs its own AI chips today but pays outside companies like TSMC and Samsung to manufacture them. Musk unveiled Terafab in March as a joint project between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, arguing that existing suppliers cannot expand fast enough to meet his companies’ future demand. The goal is to produce enough chips each year to supply one terawatt of computing power, roughly 50 times what the entire global AI chip industry produces now.
Those chips are meant for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, the Cybercab and Full Self-Driving computers, along with chips for SpaceX’s planned data centers in orbit. Owning the factory means Musk’s companies would not have to compete with every other chip customer for time on someone else’s production lines.
Intel is still part of the picture. The company signed on in April to help design, build and package chips for the project, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg this week that Intel will keep working on Terafab despite the TSMC chatter.
The project moved from concept to construction planning over the summer. In August, SpaceX confirmed the Grimes County site about an hour from Houston, sent the county a $10 million payment under its tax abatement deal and said civil work would begin shortly. The first phase carries a $16.8 billion price tag, and total spending across all phases could reach as much as $119 billion.
TSMC chairman C.C. Wei has said a new fab typically takes two to three years to build and another one to two years to reach full output. Tesla and SpaceX have never run one, which is why TSMC’s expertise drew so much attention. Musk’s answer suggests he would rather learn that process in house than hand control of a project this central to Tesla’s robotics and autonomy plans to an outside company.
Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far.
And it will be stunningly beautiful. https://t.co/4NweOqTL7y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
SpaceX brings four astronauts home after 8 months in space, and the return was flawless
Elon Musk shuts down talk of TSMC taking over Terafab
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