SpaceX's S-1 listed 3 market opportunities [1]:
1. AI. $26T total addressable market ("TAM");
2. Broadband: $1.6T TAM, split roughly 50-50 between fixed and mobile broadband; and
3. Space: $370B TAM.
In 2025, this resulted in revenue of $18.67B and a loss of $2.6B. Those aren't trillion dollar company numbers.
Now TAM is a bit of a fake number but how it's used and the relative values can reveal useful information.
The first is that space launches do not remotely justify the valuation. It's just not a massive market.
The second is that the company is burning moeny like there's no tomorrow on AI.
Lastly, getting back to your point, I believe that mobile broadband is an interesting opportunity but how big is an open question. You'll still need to comply with regulators in every country you offer service, just like all the mobile telcos do, and I don't know if it's cheaper to build and maintain ground-based towers vs Starlink satellites that have a projected lifespan of 5-6 years. Also, how many do you need? Coverage over Siberia is of limited value. Dense population centers are your primary source of customers.
I believe SpaceX would be a significantly better company if it had stuck to space launches and Starlink. It would be worth a lot less but AI might kill it through all the debt. Of course, Elon needed to do that to rescue his own disastrous Twitter than xAI "investments".
[1]: https://microventures.com/dissecting-spacex-s-1
1. AI. $26T total addressable market ("TAM");
2. Broadband: $1.6T TAM, split roughly 50-50 between fixed and mobile broadband; and
3. Space: $370B TAM.
In 2025, this resulted in revenue of $18.67B and a loss of $2.6B. Those aren't trillion dollar company numbers.
Now TAM is a bit of a fake number but how it's used and the relative values can reveal useful information.
The first is that space launches do not remotely justify the valuation. It's just not a massive market.
The second is that the company is burning moeny like there's no tomorrow on AI.
Lastly, getting back to your point, I believe that mobile broadband is an interesting opportunity but how big is an open question. You'll still need to comply with regulators in every country you offer service, just like all the mobile telcos do, and I don't know if it's cheaper to build and maintain ground-based towers vs Starlink satellites that have a projected lifespan of 5-6 years. Also, how many do you need? Coverage over Siberia is of limited value. Dense population centers are your primary source of customers.
I believe SpaceX would be a significantly better company if it had stuck to space launches and Starlink. It would be worth a lot less but AI might kill it through all the debt. Of course, Elon needed to do that to rescue his own disastrous Twitter than xAI "investments".
[1]: https://microventures.com/dissecting-spacex-s-1