A lot (everything?) hinges on orbital data centers. If they don't work, SpaceX is overvalued.
SpaceX plans to launch 120 kW satellites, each weighing 1.7 tons. Let's be conservative and say it ends up being a 100 kW satellite massing 2 tons. Let's be conservative and say Starship can launch 50 tons to orbit for $20 million ($5 million more than a Falcon 9 launch).
50 kW per ton x $400K per ton = $8,000 per kW = $8 million per megawatt in launch costs.
That means a 100 megawatt orbital data center will cost $800 million to launch.
You need about 833 satellites for 100 megawatts, so let's round up to 1,000 satellites. Let's say one of these satellites cost $3 million (that's probably high, but let's go with that for now). That's about $3 billion for satellite manufacturing.
Bottom line: It will cost SpaceX $4 billion to launch a 100 megawatt data center.
Anthropic is paying SpaceX roughly $50 million per megawatt per year. SpaceX could sell access to its data center for $5 billion per year. Assuming the satellites last for 4 years, that's $20 billion in revenue from $4 billion in costs.
Please correct my math/assumptions, but this rough calculation shows that SpaceX could be right and Morningstar could be wrong.
SpaceX plans to launch 120 kW satellites, each weighing 1.7 tons. Let's be conservative and say it ends up being a 100 kW satellite massing 2 tons. Let's be conservative and say Starship can launch 50 tons to orbit for $20 million ($5 million more than a Falcon 9 launch).
50 kW per ton x $400K per ton = $8,000 per kW = $8 million per megawatt in launch costs.
That means a 100 megawatt orbital data center will cost $800 million to launch.
You need about 833 satellites for 100 megawatts, so let's round up to 1,000 satellites. Let's say one of these satellites cost $3 million (that's probably high, but let's go with that for now). That's about $3 billion for satellite manufacturing.
Bottom line: It will cost SpaceX $4 billion to launch a 100 megawatt data center.
Anthropic is paying SpaceX roughly $50 million per megawatt per year. SpaceX could sell access to its data center for $5 billion per year. Assuming the satellites last for 4 years, that's $20 billion in revenue from $4 billion in costs.
Please correct my math/assumptions, but this rough calculation shows that SpaceX could be right and Morningstar could be wrong.