We have done an in-space Raptor lighting, so we feel pretty comfortable, but we want another suborbital shot on the next flight, and then I hope we at least attempt an orbital injection on flight 14. And then from there on out.
Okay. What do you think is a reasonable timeline? I realize a lot has to happen.
A lot has to happen. I think we're...
So, what is it? Beginning of June?
Maybe a month-ish away from flight 13, and then we should fly every month.
So, we could actually see a Starship that is in operation by the end of this year.
I am in Starbase, Texas. I'm inside of the Starship rocket factory, and joining me now is SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell. Wow, it's great to be here.
Thank you, Morgan. I'm so glad you could make time to come down to Starbase. It's an incredible place.
It really is incredible, and I want to get into Starship specifically here in just a moment, but first, huge moment right now with SpaceX poised to go public. Not just for the company, not just for the space industry, but for markets, for the world overall. Why go public? Why now?
So, it's interesting. I wasn't sure we would go public. Having a private company was important to us early on because we really weren't focused on quarterly financials. We were so focused on the long-term outlook for the company. But, we've gotten so many of the building blocks completed for so many of these different business areas, it actually feels like the right time. Now, instead of... I mean, there's still development left to do. We still have work to do on Starship. We've got work to do on Starlink, but we've got the building blocks there, and now it's time to scale.
Hm. What is being public enabled that being private at this point does not?
$75 billion, give or take.
Minus 20 billion to pay around that.
Yeah, scaling is very expensive, actually, and the things that we're doing cost a lot to do. And but I don't even want to just focus on the financials. We've been feeling over the last few years a lot of pressure from everyday Americans and our friends that wanted to buy stock and there was just no way for these folks to get in. Unfortunately, probably some got scammed. But there was no way to buy SpaceX stock. And it feels like a company that, you know, great people should be able to own a piece of.
It's interesting to hear you say that because obviously SpaceX has rewritten their space and defense playbook. Are you rewriting this retail investor playbook, too, with this IPO?
You know, I think we'll see what happens, right? But certainly letting everyday Americans and everyday people purchase the stock was a big focus for Elon and the team.
Yeah, I want to get into the businesses themselves, but first just one more question on all of this and that is you just mentioned the long lead times. I mean, SpaceX has famously done things that everybody else has said was impossible, whether it's broadband Leo or that's reusable rockets. I can go down the list, but all of this takes time. To be a publicly traded company, now you're dealing with investors that are thinking on a quarterly basis and any headline can move the stock. So, how are you adjusting to that?
So, I hope the folks that do decide to invest in SpaceX take a look at our history and see how we do operate and become comfortable with the way we operate, right? Our time horizons are very long term. I do not want to focus on quarterly earnings. I'm not saying we're not going to do right by our investors. But what folks that invest in SpaceX need to know is they need to know that what we're doing is very futuristic and we should be thinking about the future as well as the current quarter.
Yeah, and a 300-page plus prospectus that is very focused on the future. But out of the gate, what should investors be focused on judging the company on right now?
Well, I think for sure you need to look at our track record. It's funny, Elon jokes that we make the impossible, we just make it late. And people say, 'Oh, you're moving so quickly.' And we feel like we're actually behind. We always feel very behind. I do want people to basically look at our track record, look at our history. We do do really difficult things. We do bring them to product level. In fact, you know, xAI is definitely starting to be product focused. It was very much a lab, very much a research organization. And now, you know, after the acquisition, and obviously they were focused on product more than just when we purchased them, earlier than that. But, they're definitely focused on product now.
I just want to go back to something you said about that tend to be a little late, but to always get it done. How to think about that in terms of forecast and managing investor expectations around timelines? Because it's a little different than what you usually hear.
We're very candid. I mean, some people look at us as a very quietly, you know, not very public company at all. I don't mean it in the financial way. I think we put a lot out there, actually. I think we're quite candid about what we're trying to do, the risks involved, and when we're late, we're late. Like, it's pretty obvious when you set a launch date and you don't hit it. So, I think we're pretty candid about kind of the hurdles in front of us. And if we're late or if we have a misstep, we'll be very clear about that and why. And by the way, I think it's actually really important to have failure. Do you know what a failure? Like, if a launch goes perfectly, all you learned is that that launch vehicle on that day worked. You didn't get any more data than that, right? So, when you have failure, you actually get this treasure trove of data. So, failure, whether it's in the development phase, obviously you don't want failure on the mission phase, or failure in missing milestones from a time perspective, you learn from that. You get better.
Yeah, part of the innovation process with SpaceX. Let's talk a little bit about Starlink, because it is the driver of the broader company right now. What does full completion or I guess where do we top out here in terms of the build out of Starlink?
It's interesting. I'm not... I never really think about topping out. It's just not in the mind frame. We will... So, the early satellites, we still have some very early satellites up in orbit. They're not as good as the latest ones and they certainly don't have as much capacity as the V3s that will be flying later on this year on Starship. And so, I feel like we will continually refresh the old satellites that we have and we'll add a lot more capability. We are actually constrained by capacity in many markets, really important markets. So, scaling is actually really quite important to the revenue story for us.
Meaning there is more demand than you can actually supply right now.
Than we can fulfill right now. Yes.
Okay. Starlink mobile, how big is that opportunity?
I think that opportunity is huge. If you were to look at numbers of subscribers, I think Starlink mobile will far exceed Starlink broadband in the home. I think more than half the population, the global population has a cell phone, which is a shocking but it's somewhat... it's crazy numbers of people have cell phones. Not everybody is going to need broadband, a Starlink broadband in their home. There's lots of other options as well. But I think the numbers of users of Starlink mobile will far exceed our Starlink broadband.
Yeah, you just mentioned it. When you're talking about the V3 Starlink satellites or some of the other capabilities that you're looking to put to orbit here, it's going to hinge on Starship. So, in terms of forecast, what it's going to take to get Starship to full operation and service?
So, we had a great most recent flight, flight 12, flight 13. We're going to largely do what we did on flight 12. We obviously had some things that weren't perfect on that flight for sure. So, we'll improve that, we'll fix that, learn that lesson, address it, get back to flight 13. I hope on flight 14 we'll follow the same basically the same flight with the exception if we feel like we can actually go to orbit, then we would actually have that gate and have the FAA let us go to orbit on flight 14. And then maybe flight 15 actually flies from the Cape.
How are you thinking about launch in-house versus out of house for government customers, commercial customers over the long term?
