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SpaceX Starlink Will Equal Launch Revenue in 2020 and Will Make Elon the World’s Richest Person by 2023

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SpaceX has successfully deployed sixty production versions of the Starlink Satellite. They are targeting six Starlink launches through the next six months. Those six launches will place 360 Starlink satellites into orbit. The pace of Starlink launches will increase with six more launches by the end of April 2020. This will enable SpaceX to generate a lot of revenue for service to North America, Europe and Asia. The revenue will be from reducing latency in financial trading communication.

SpaceX and Elon Musk will be made financially secure by 2023 and will have the $20 billion per year budget of NASA. If Elon has a 30X on his 54% share of SpaceX, then with Elon would have 30 times $10 billion in 2024 (50% of $20 billion in 2024). This means Elon would be worth over $300 billion without including any valuation for Tesla.

If Tesla still had any financial issues, Elon would be able to lend money from SpaceX to Tesla by late 2020 or 2021. Elon used Tesla to buyout Solarcity. In 2018, financial analysts speculated that Elon could his SpaceX stake as collateral in a buyout of Tesla. If SpaceX is worth $100 billion late in 2020 and then $200 billion in 2021, Elon would easily be able to fund a Tesla buyout with his $54 billion and then $108 billion of SpaceX (versus about $15 billion today).

In capital markets, low latency is the use of algorithmic (programmed) trading to react to market events faster than the competition to increase the profitability of trades. In 2007 a large global investment bank has stated that every millisecond lost results in $100 million per year in lost opportunity.

Laser light communication in a vacuum is physically 45% faster than communication through a fiber.

SpaceX will start generating substantial revenue in 2020 equal or slightly exceeding launch revenue. This was based upon 2017 SpaceX revenue projections from a 2017 Wall Street Journal article.

SOURCES – SpaceX, Twitter, Wall Street Journal
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

34 thoughts on “SpaceX Starlink Will Equal Launch Revenue in 2020 and Will Make Elon the World’s Richest Person by 2023”

  3. Starlink requires a phased array antenna about the size of a pizza box, you cannot connect to it directly with a cell phone. It will also be more expensive and slower than 5g, and not really suitable for high population density areas.

  4. I don’t know enough about it but starlink was created by Elon Musk to be able to link tesla cars together. So starlink could link mobile devices..

  5. Selling tesla would appear to be a defeat to Elon Musk. Elon Musk has the ego of a world entrepreneur, so there is no way he will admit defeat by selling tesla to apple, no matter how much they offer. To Elon Musk at that point it’s not about money. Tesla cars are the best cars out there right now so he will buy tesla and make it a success. Elon Musk is on his way to being a legend, up there with Edison, B. Franklin etc.. Buying tesla and making it a success will cement his place on that list of legends.

  6. Still a good point to ask.. why would anyone investing in Oneweb still continue doing so unless they think starlink wont deliver? otherwise why waste the money?

  8. I completely agree with the last comment, but the automated traders will be competing against each other for those automated trades. Do you see an opportunity there to hard-sell this tech to the big dogs? They have deep pockets.

  9. Yep. We are facing a similar situation to that in the dawn of the great explorations and the making of empires.

    Even if we kind of know the places we are going to thanks to our robots, and that the places are not immediately inhabitable and that there are no easy resources to gather there, beyond weightlessness, vacuum and Sun light which are a plenty.

    Even in this different situation, we are seeing some new capabilities and interests forming and trying to expand their (and through theirs, ours) presence and influence upon new territories.

    Which is fortunate. The desire to reach out and sail the dangerous seas isn’t an innate one in humanity by any measure.

    Most humans aren’t afflicted by that inclination, and in some previous cultures, it has even been actively suppressed, if it was perceive to go against the interest of the ruling elites.

    Funnily, we also have some elites that would prefer to see us depopulate and impoverish, bound to remain forever on Earth and turn back the clock of scientific and technological advance. And pretty much for the same reasons. Growth and exploration tend to disrupt the existing power structures and make the existing oligarchs obsolete or irrelevant.

  10. All marginal. High frequency trading is driven by computer programs that are running in servers that are co-located with the Stock Exchange servers so latency is not an issue. Retail traders (aka suckers) don’t have a chance.

  11. How much reserves do they have to cope with a year long delay or a BFR showstopper? (yeah – I like BFR better than the new designations)

  13. Having the lowest latency of any network gives it appeal in many applications. Market trades are being talked about frequently, but I can think of a few others. High-end gaming, automated quick response to hacking attempts, and maybe even access to unmonitored content by repressed populations.

  14. It is doubtful that Starlink will be successful. What is going to drive customers to it since they are many alternative vehicles for communication? Is there an untapped market bursting at the seems?

  15. What I haven’t heard is how SpaceX plans to sell their service?

    I’m guessing at first they’ll work with a handful of companies who want to test the technology. Then sell through a handful of 3rd party resellers focused on high value markets that can afford conventional tracking antennas (pending availability of the phased array antennas). Then 3rd party sales to anyone who can afford early and more expensive phased array attennas. Finally anyone who buys the inexpensive version of hardware and can get it installed without SpaceX help – keeping SpaceX costs minimal.

  16. “Just hold back on the weed and 420 jokes Elon, we love you!” (Screams hysterically like a 60’s tweeny at a Beetles concert.) OK, seriously now, while there’s this overall business trajectory, how dangerous is Elon himself to this working out? Have his handlers given him the word?

  17. Range is not as big issue as you think. Tesla have superchargers just about everywhere. The Tesla route planner will plan all the stops for charging for you if needed. And if you need something with more range Tesla Model S have 370 miles range atm after recent tech refresh in Q1 this year.

  18. I don’t about selling tesla… elon might win on that one also.. I saw at least 5 telsas on the road driving out of DC for memorial day… and at least two telsas on the road driving to work everyday…. compare that to the one and only of the now defunct Chevy volt that i saw breifly the other day driving on the road… Actually, I would consider buying one..r i just worry about the range… beause i would need to drive 300 miles a week with only a weekend charge… but if i only used it for driving around town and an occasional day trip… that would be good enough for me..

  20. Right. 5G will generate more demand for Starlink. 5G antennas might sometimes directly connect to Starlink not optical fiber internet. Starlink isn’t designed to provide direct internet to mobile devices like 5G.

  22. They have a contract with Ariane to launch more than 20 payloads with Soyuz that has mostly been funded. Whether One Web holds up to the SpaceX competition is unclear. They might still collapse and be bought out by Jeff Bezos/Amazon for their licenses and technology. He’d then make that the basis of Amazon’s constellation launched by Blue Origin.

  23. Cargo launches have already blown up and manned launch will end up in casualties.
    What happens, NASA will be crippled for a few years, but SpaceX will fix the problem and commercial business will go on. This is also a good reason for them to find a Spaceport out of the US jurisdiction.

  24. I wonder how robust SpaceX is to some bad luck and some what ifs?

    What if a manned launch ends up in casualties and/or some F9 cargo transports blows up?

    What if there is a hard-to-fix design flaw in the Raptor that results in fireworks or bad reusability or bad isp?

  25. There are others doing similarly cool things in EVs, SDCs, AI and neural interfaces right now.

    There is no one else doing as much as SpaceX is for commercial and crewed space travel.

    And philosophically, there’s a race between those innovating for going inwards vs those going outwards.

    And this is not just metaphorical. If the inwards race is won before we can go out, and we achieve digital nirvana and its endless pleasures, we could lose the will to ever go out again.

  26. 5g will still have a place due to how it works and what is applications are. 5g is not just faster internet, its the template for internet of things of the future.

    That said for 95% of other things Starlink will be better 🙂

  28. You people are mostly space oriented people that’s why your reading this article. It’s not space that makes this article so great its what Elon Musk will do with the money. Space exploration is still a long way off with the antiquated technology we use today. I think he will use the money to fund his neural link company which will change everything. Plus with his vision he will fund genetic engineering to end ageing. Why should he grow old, we are so close to major breakthroughs. He might even fund fusion research because fusion power will change everything too.

  30. I think the tesla bulls are betting against the wrong man! Elon Musk is unlike all the super billionaires of the past, in that he wants to make the world a much better place.
    And it will happen fast!

  31. A momentous achievement. Once they are financially secure and have NASA level budget, all bets are over for what they can do. Private space stations, lunar missions, lunar bases, crewed flights to Mars, anything that can be imagined with current technology and fits on their budget and abilities.

    Funnily, Starlink won’t be even thinkable if they didn’t develop F9, partial reuse and in house manufacturing to the point they did. This is simply something impossible for any previously existing space agency and company.

    Also it seems like once reusable launchers are developed, the downpour of incremental improvements they make possible also ensure the winner takes it all.

    Competition needs to really step up its game or they will be left in the dust.

  32. So SpaceX is in a PROFOUNDLY unique position-
    Cheap, reusable rockets and the desire to develop cheap, ultra high speed internet. And the desire/ability to expediate our journey to the stars.
    Triple threat combo.

  33. Perfect match. Apple has more money than it can use. But little innovation. Tesla has more innovative ideas than it can fund.

  34. Two thoughts:

    1. Hopefully Elon sells Tesla to Apple, takes the money and invests in SpaceX. Build the BFS and BFR on your own and make Starlink as lucrative as we all know it can be.
    2. lol @ 5G.

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