SpaceX may spin out internet-from-space business and make it public

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SpaceX may spin out internet-from-space business and make it public
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SpaceX may spin off its massive internet-from-space initiative called Starlink into a separate business and take the company public, according to Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president.
“That particular piece is an element of the business that we are likely to spin out and go public,” Shotwell said, according to Bloomberg.
“Right now, we are a private company, but Starlink is the right kind of business that we can go ahead and take public.”
Starlink is an ambitious proposal: a constellation of nearly 12,000 satellites designed to beam down broadband internet coverage to every part of the globe.
So far, SpaceX has launched 240 satellites for Starlink, making the company the operator of the largest active satellite constellation in the world.
The company has plans to launch up to 24 missions this year, sending up 60 satellites per flight.
Pursuing an initial public offering for Starlink would be a big step for the Elon Musk-run SpaceX, which has remained private since it was founded in 2002.
Musk, who notoriously hates publicly traded companies, has in the past said he wouldn’t take SpaceX public until the company’s Mars vehicle was complete.
“Some at SpaceX who have not been through a public company experience may think that being public is desirable,” Musk wrote in an email to SpaceX employees in 2013.
The most recent valuation of SpaceX put the company at around $33.3 billion, according to CNBC.
Most of SpaceX’s business has revolved around sending satellites or cargo into orbit, with NASA, the Department of Defense, or private satellite operators as customers.
But with Starlink, SpaceX plans to sell a service directly to the general public.
Customers will be able to purchase user terminals to patch into the Starlink constellation, turning SpaceX into a consumer-facing business.
Right now, SpaceX is working on a next-generation rocket called Starship to jump-start the company’s interplanetary ambitions

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