The crown jewel in Elon Musk's empire

Luke Hartley realized how crucial Elon Musk's Starlink was to him whenever it cut overboard.

Two weeks into his voyage throughout the Pacific in October 2023, Hartley's sailboat, Songbird, was hit by an serious squall that knocked the Starlink dish stable on the forefront of the container complete the side.

It was a important attack for the music instructor turned sailing influencer, who tells me he made far additional prosperity posting concerning his three-year voyage about the earth on TikTok via Starlink than he always had in the US learning system. Without moon internet, he had no way to upload the videos that were backing his voyage, inspect climate forecasts, or call his family.

From the distant Pacific to the forefront lines of Ukraine, Starlink's network of orbital net satellites has rotate into essential to 13 myriad group in additional than 167 countries. Starlink accounted for additional than 60% of the $18.6 milliard in income SpaceX generated final year, and was the lone part of the endeavor to rotate a profit.

Musk has grander ambitions for the flying crown jewels in his empire. The business plans to initiate tens of thousands additional satellites in the coming years as it targets new markets, in a shove to change Starlink from a boutique assistance for rugged survivalists into the world's premier wireless transporter and broadband provider.

Many users who akin it affection it, and have inundated social media alongside praise for Musk and his creation.

Beyond the profits, Starlink has additionally provided Musk a critical origin of power and gentle power that stretches the globe.

The world's richest man's attempt to gut authorities bureaucracy alongside DOGE, his enormous governmental donations, and his erratic and incendiary posting habits on X have disbursal him Tesla customers and inspired boycotts and protests against his another companies. But Starlink is so helpful in far-flung and war-torn places — and has so few alternatives — that it has granted Musk a rare flat of immunity to governmental gravity. It's additionally remaining governments, adventurers, and digital nomads struggling to reconcile their reliance on the innovation alongside the controversies that swirl about Musk.

"We can condemn Musk till the cows arrive home, but it's an amazing product," says Hartley, who has blended feelings concerning depending so heavily on Starlink. "It has a extremely arguable name rearward it, but it is additionally a way for me to conversation to my mom and motivate folks. Both things can be true."

Nowhere is this dancing between reluctance and reliance additional delicately choreographed than in Ukraine, anywhere Starlink has been essential in the war against Russia. Starlink satellites have been extensively adopted throughout the Ukrainian armed forces as a comms scheme that cannot be hacked or jammed by Russian broadcast warfare. The assistance has allowed dirt teams to modify their targets mid-mission and remotely authority drones alongside flawless video nearly to the instant of impact, alongside no need for elephantine antennas that could disclose their position.

The scientific advantage has arrive at the cost of giving a mercurial CEO the power to tilt the balance of the war.

In 2023, Musk sparked earth headlines whenever he revealed he refused a petition to activate Starlink to assistance a Ukrainian assault on Crimea since he was concerned that "SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a important act of war."

The billionaire additionally threatened to halt supplying Ukraine alongside Starlink terminals the twelvemonth previous complete a backing dispute, and Reuters reported final July that he jeopardized a 2022 Ukrainian counteroffensive by cutting Starlink admission to frontline troops.

Musk did not react to the report, but he earlier stated in a March 2025 X post that he would never rotate off Ukrainian terminals or use the danger of doing so as a bargaining chip, no matter how much he disagreed alongside the country's government.

More recently, Musk has stated Ukraine an edge. In February of this year, SpaceX clamped downward on Russian forces' illicit use of Starlink terminals following Ukraine's then-defense curate made a personal petition to Musk. The cutoff seriously disrupted Russia's armed forces and allowed Ukraine to retake precious territory.

Some servicemembers and researchers say Ukraine's reliant yet unstable association alongside Starlink leaves them uneasy. "If you are armed forces and you're functioning a drone, you cannot depend on item unpredictable. All the systems have to be under control," says one drone aviator and sergeant in Ukraine's unmanned brigades. "But we have no substitute correct now," he adds.

Alessio Terzi, an aide prof at the University of Cambridge's Bennett School of Public Policy, tells me that governments hazard entering a "Faustian pact" alongside Musk that would see the billionaire decide how, when, and anywhere its citizens and militaries admission the internet.

He stated that the closest difference for this flat of geopolitical power is not pre-war titans of industry akin Henry Ford and Thomas Edison but the East India Company, the British selling conglomerate that ruled complete much of the Indian subcontinent. The business was granted exclusive entitlements to run the commerce routes between Asia and Britain in 1600. It leveraged that monopoly to develop into a quasi-empire alongside its own scheme of tax and position armed forces that ruled complete millions for nearly three centuries.

We can condemn Musk till the cows arrive home, but it's an amazing product.Luke Hartley

Terzi says that SpaceX's market portion of everything sent into area — near to 80% in 2025 — outstrips the East India Company's portion of earth shipping at its peak. He adds that Musk and SpaceX are leveraging their own monopoly complete moon communication to act additional akin a sovereign province than a personal company.

"This is a mega-company that is chipping distant at several roles that would normally autumn on the government," says Terzi.

A celebrity is born

When Musk archetypal announced plans for Starlink in 2015, launching net satellites was an aspiring flank quest. At the time, SpaceX's chief goal was to lesser the disbursal of launching cargo into area by perfecting its Falcon rocket, which could be partially reused complete multiple flights fairly than self-destructing on impact.

One erstwhile SpaceX employee stated that SpaceX initially based its Starlink division in Redmond, Washington, in part to evade distracting workforce operating on Falcon at the company's chief accommodation in Texas and California. SpaceX did not react to a petition for comment.

By 2020, however, Starlink was at the center of SpaceX's plans. That year, Musk suggested the moon net assistance could rotate into a $30 billion-a-year prosperity cow.

The business spun up a manufacturing row for Starlink person terminals in a border of its Hawthorne, California, facility that was so far distant from the chief evidence that first workforce bought bikes to journey from one flank to the other. The bikes were regularly stolen, another erstwhile employee said. In representative SpaceX fashion, the manufacturing row quickly expanded, the erstwhile employee said, so much so that it spilled out into unfinished buildings alongside compacted dirt floors.

Musk took a hands-on method to the project, the individual added, including telling workforce to communication him if they encountered any roadblocks and providing specialized feedback on new versions of the terminal.

"If his net was down, afterward we were in trouble," the erstwhile employee said.

In Starlink's first days, Musk framed it as an attempt to "rebuild the internet" into a space-based network that would eliminate lag during reaching the estimated 42 myriad Americans alongside no admission to broadband internet. It had the added bonus, Musk said, of providing a dependable stream of income to pay for SpaceX's Mars colonialism efforts.

Musk's rivals are additionally chasing this vision. Jeff Bezos' Amazon and Paris-based Eutelsat OneWeb have attempted to build their own moon constellations, but the control of SpaceX's missile endeavor — the business launched its Falcon 9 missile 165 times final year, additional rockets than the remainder of the earth blended — gives it a steep advantage. When Amazon put 24 of its Project Kuiper (now Leo) satellites into orbit final October, they traveled on a SpaceX rocket.

Recently, Musk has gone from describing Starlink as cheap net for agrarian communities to item additional fundamental: an oxygen origin for an AI-saturated world. In SpaceX's August 2026 earnings call, Musk speculated that petition for Starlink would skyrocket as it became the connectivity network for fleets of robotaxis and armies of humanoid robots. (Tesla has already begun outfitting its Cybercab robotaxis alongside Starlink dishes.)

Beyond the financial achievement Starlink has afforded Musk, it has additionally rotate into a helpful tool for him and SpaceX to assistance group in need, which can additionally create affirmative headlines. The business regularly offers Starlink for liberated in countries hit by natural disasters and it waived fees for Starlink admission in Iran during a authorities crackdown on protests.

SpaceX has additionally used Starlink discounts to defuse the data center backlash that has dispersed throughout the US. The missile giant's Colossus data centers in Memphis and nearby Southaven, Mississippi, have attracted opposition and lawsuits from local residents complaining concerning noise and contamination from the gas generators powering the sites. SpaceX responded in June by offering residents in Memphis 50% off Starlink for their "partnership and support." SpaceX extended the identical recommendation to residents of agrarian Vermilion Parish in Louisiana, anywhere it is construction a $100 milliard spaceport that volition eventually assistance thousands of Starship flights a year.

Musk's ambitions for the assistance are expanding additional galactic. In SpaceX's August earnings call, he predicted that Starlink could provision the bulk of the world's net inside the next 10 years.

One area anywhere Starlink has already rotate into a must-have is in the air. Executives stated on the call that in-flight WiFi powered by Starlink, which has been adopted by additional than 40 airlines, has rotate into so famous that several passengers — including YouTube influencer Mr Beast — are booking short-haul flights alternatively of going straightforward since they have Starlink.

The moon net assistance has rotate into a important marketing item for airlines that recommendation it and a headache for those who don't. United Airlines has used its Starlink in-flight WiFi to try and woo Delta loyalty flyers, following Delta picked Amazon's Leo for its fleet.

SpaceX chairman Gwynne Shotwell signaled on the call that the business plans to rotate its mobile assistance into a full-fledged mobile transporter that volition aggressively mark AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. "I anticipate us to be capable to get fairly a few of their customers since I think our assistance volition be better," she said.

Limited by liftoffs

To obtain on the telecoms, SpaceX is preparedness to inhabit the heavens alongside a lot additional Starlink satellites.

The business has submitted proposals to regulators to initiate 100,000 of its V3 Starlink satellites, which are larger units that can lone be launched on SpaceX's enormous Starship rocket.

Analysts say that this proliferation won't be adequate to obtain on the likes of AT&T. Tim Farrar, chairman at innovation consultancy TMF Associates, tells me that during low-earth orbit satellites are awesome at providing safety to distant and agrarian areas, they battle to provision assistance in densely populated cities. As they whiz about the earth at 17,000 miles an hour, Starlink's satellites expend a small fraction of their period in orbit complete these areas, and far additional period crossing ample uninhabited expanses of sea and wilderness.

Starlink would provision Taiwan a backup network for armed forces and noncombatant comms that would be exceptionally difficult for China to jam.

Pierre Lionnet, a area economist, says that as the business launches additional satellites to try to encounter rising petition in municipal areas, the amount of capability being wasted volition increase, shrinking SpaceX's margins. "The issue of expanding this capability is that it method that the identical moon volition expend a larger amount of period circling the earth in areas anywhere there is no additional demand," he says. Lionnet estimates that the business would be improbable to rotate a gain on a 100,000-strong network of Starlink satellites at the current disbursal of launching cargo into orbit.

SpaceX is operating difficult to bring that disbursal downward alongside Starship, its most advanced rocket, which executives evaluation volition decrease initiate expenses by 10 times compared to the Falcon 9. In September, SpaceX hit a important milestone for Starship whenever it deployed operating Starlink V3 satellites into orbit for the archetypal time.

Until Starship can ramp up to complete business operation, SpaceX volition visage force to maximize income from the moon capability they do have, Lionnet says. That method adding new endeavor customers, specified as governments and airlines, and launching Starlink in new countries.

When connectivity becomes power

Global enlargement gives Musk new gentle power opportunities, but additionally risks entangling another parts of his endeavor empire in geopolitics.

Following the example of Ukraine and the US authorities — for which SpaceX has built Starshield, a safe armed forces type of Starlink — another nations are looking closely at Starlink for armed forces purposes. In July, Taiwan changed abroad ownership rules that earlier crumbled negotiations alongside SpaceX to bring Starlink to the isle nation.

Phoebe Pham, a investigator at Taiwan's state-backed Institute for National Defense and Security Research, says that low-earth orbit moon net networks akin Starlink would be crucial for the nation in the event of a battle alongside China, which views Taiwan as a breakaway province.

Some armed forces analysts have predicted that in an assault on Taiwan, China would apt cut the undersea cables that provision net to the isle and initiate a barrage of cyberattacks against the island's communications infrastructure. For the Taiwanese government, Starlink would provision a backup network for armed forces and noncombatant comms that would be exceptionally difficult for China to jam.

"It would be incorrect to say they're not looking at lessons learned from Ukraine," Pham says.

In Taiwan, authorities endorsement or acceptance of Starlink could be complex by Musk's endeavor interests in China and his former comments concerning Taiwanese independence. He suggested in 2022 that the isle rotate into a "special administrative zone" akin to Hong Kong and described Taiwan as an "integral part" of China in 2023. Tesla has operated a elephantine EV factory in Shanghai since 2019, and about a fifth of the automaker's income final twelvemonth came from the Chinese market.

Pham says that if Starlink applied to run in Taiwan, the authorities would have to measure the hazard that Musk's endeavor interests in China could be used as "potential leverage." It could search to evade giving Musk the benevolent of unilateral decision-making power he has enjoyed in Ukraine, she added.

"The inquiry is, who makes these decisions concerning the activation and coverage?" she says.

Starlink has additionally run into geopolitical roadblocks in India. In June, Bloomberg reported that officials hit the brakes on the service's long-awaited initiate following raising concerns complete reports from local Iranian media that Starlink kits were being used in Iran, notwithstanding a state-mandated obstacle on net admission during the battle alongside the US and Israel. SpaceX administrator Lauren Dreyer stated in reply to Bloomberg's study that the business remained in "active and productive discussions" concerning bringing Starlink to India, adding that SpaceX had set up a bespoke deployment example for functioning Starlink in the country.

Ukraine is now exploring substitute methods for frontline communications. A elder fig at a business manufacturing drones for the country's armed forces says Ukraine is preparedness for the day Starlink goes offline, whether since Musk has pulled the plug or hence of straightforward Russian attacks on Starlink's satellites.

"Hopefully, it volition not happen tomorrow. But if it happens in a year, Ukraine volition be ready," the individual says. "Every armed forces should prepared for this circumstance since it's not fair a inquiry if Elon Musk volition close it down. In the military, you continually need to have backup options for connectivity. Otherwise, you may endure everything."

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