Editor’s Note

Today’s newsletter is late. My bad. I started down a rabbit hole of writing about Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and it took all week to research and write. Now it’s Friday, and I have a 123 week winning streak of publishing this newsletter that I’m not about to lose. So here’s the good and bad of it. My main article about Elon Musk’s SpaceX is a long read, but today’s quick hits are short(er) that usual. So I think it’s a nice compromise that I hope you’ll enjoy. Now onto today’s issue.

In today’s newsletter we talk about how Elon Musk's ambitions for SpaceX are out of this world, Nvidia and Corning are teaming to make fiber optic cabling for AI data centers, the FCC received over 2,000 complaints about Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show (who cares!), Anthropic is raising a funding round that could value them at $1 trillion dollars, Cuba is going solar amid the U.S.’s oil blockade of the Caribbean island, TikTok creator Hunter Peterson wants to launch a crowd funding campaign to buy Spirit Airlines (not gonna happen), the The United Arab Emirates just quit OPEC, and once again there are rumors of LeBron James retiring from the NBA.

Let’s get into it!

Elon Musk’s vision has always been out of this world, but now SpaceX is about to take off with their planned IPO coming this Summer, hot on the heels of their acquisition of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI. With the development of the company’s Starship rocketship, and its planned Artemis missions back to the moon with a keen eye toward exploring Mars, the future is looking out of this world for Elon Musk! Let's get into it.

SpaceX is planning to raise $75 billion dollars when IPO this Summer at a market cap valuation of between $1.75-$2 trillion dollars. This would be the biggest IPO in history, dwarfing that of Saudi Aramco that IPOed in 2019 and raised $29.4 billion dollars at a $1.7 trillion dollar valuation.

So what does SpaceX plan to do with that $75 billion dollars in cash they raise from their IPO?

Well, it turns out, doing anything in space isn’t cheap.

SpaceX’s initial public offering prospectus says they’ll use the funds they raise to support SpaceX’s capital-intensive projects including to expand the Starlink internet satellite network, development of the Starship rocket system for going back to the moon and someday traveling to Mars to begin Elon Musk’s stated goal of colonizing Mars, the development SpaceXAI’s space-based AI data centers, and the terrestrial-based Terafab AI chip factory. Those are some pretty lofty goals, but a lot of smart people have gone broke betting against Elon Musk’s ambitions.

Right now SpaceX currently holds more than 80% of the global market share for space launches, which helped the company bring in around $15 billion dollars in revenue in 2025. For 2026, SpaceX is projecting revenues of between $22-$30 billion dollars, with around $20 billion dollars of them coming from Starlink alone this year. The Starlink internet satellite division has 10 million active subscribers across the globe, and this predictable and recurring revenue has been a key driver of how SpaceX has been able to funnel that income back into the design and development of their new Starship rocketship.

SpaceX reuse of their Falcon 9 boosters, sometimes for more than 20 launches, has helped the company to more cost effectively launch their Starlink satellites into orbit. SpaceX normally charges their standard list price of $74 million dollars for a brand new dedicated Falcon 9 rocket launch. This strategy has allowed SpaceX to reduce the launch cost of a reused Falcon rocket to just $15 million dollars. So every time they relaunch a Falcon rocket with Starlink satellites onboard they’re saving close to $50 million dollars, which in turn is helping the Starlink network to grow and become profitable against competition from companies like Amazon’s Leo internet satellite network, which in April 2026 acquired GlobalStar who was one of the early pioneers in mobile and internet satellite services. Today there are over 10,300 active Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit. In total SpaceX has launched around 12,000 satellites total since 2019, with many of their earlier versions having either failed or been deorbited in planned fiery descents into the Earth’s atmosphere.

SpaceX’s focus in the last few years has been on their Starship rocket system and its reusability. SpaceX plans to launch both the first stage Super Heavy booster, with the second stage Starship spacecraft on top, and then return both stages to their launch pads where they’ll be caught using the massive mechanical arms, or "chopsticks" as they are loving referred to, on the launch towers, which they’ve named "Mechazilla". Both stages of the Starship system are powered by Raptor engines, which have been designed for rapid reuse. The latest V3 Raptor engines have dramatically reduced the complexity of the rockets, and resulted in an increase in thrust of up to 280 tonnes-force (which is SpaceX’s fancy way of saying their new Raptor V3 rocket engines are really powerful). Right now SpaceX launches their Starships from their Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border where they’ve been building out their manufacturing and launch facilities for over a decade. SpaceX is also currently building new facilities at Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, as well as at their Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station also in Florida. Elon Musk has also talked about in the future using modified oil rigs as drone ships for the launch and recovery of Starships, similar to the way SpaceX recovers their Falcon rockets using their fleet of drone ships “Of Course I Still Love You”, and “A Shortfall of Gravitas”, and the retired “Just Read The Instructions”,  which are all names from Iain M. Banks’s science fiction series Culture.

While SpaceX has predominately designed the Starship system to launch the company’s Starlink satellites, NASA is excited about the rocket’s 200 tons of cargo capacity that it can deliver to orbit with each flight. NASA has committed to using Starship for its return to the moon mission, and has awarded SpaceX contracts worth $4 billion dollars as a part of NASA’s $20 billion dollar Artemis project. That’s all fine and good, and a nice lucrative distraction for SpaceX, but Elon Musk has far greater ambitions for Starship-going to Mars. Elon Musk’s stated goal for SpaceX is to make life "multi-planetary" within his lifetime, and build a self-sustaining city of 1 million people on Mars by 2050. NASA has been lukewarm to this idea, but when has that ever stopped Elon Musk? But colonizing Mars and building a city there for 1 million people doesn’t come cheap. Some estimates put the price tag at over $10 trillion dollars!

Part of the cornerstone of Elon Musk’s plans for SpaceX include the integration of his newly acquired xAI into SpaceX, to form the newly named SpaceXAI. The acquisition in February 2026 valued SpaceX at $1 trillion dollars and xAI at $250 billion dollars, which combined valued SpaceX at $1.25 trillion dollars. Elon Musk has talked about his plans to launch massive AI data center satellites into space, which will be powered by xAI. Elon Musk believes that putting these data centers in orbit will solve some of the issues of land-based AI data centers including local zoning rules and regulations, the massive energy requirement of AI data centers that Elon Musk believes he can solve by using solar energy to power these satellites, and the problem of cooling AI data centers which is put into space could use the freezing cold -455°F temperature of space to cool the satellites so they literally don’t melt in space. Just as SpaceX has done with the launches of their Starlink internet satellites, SpaceX plans to launch their new AI data center satellites into space by using the company’s soon to be operational Starship rockets to carry these data center components into orbit. The new Starship 3 version of the spacecraft can carry 200 tons of equipment into orbit. With this sort of launch capacity SpaceX could very quickly scale up a constellation of AI data center satellites, which could be 40% more cost effective to cool and operate than using the current model of ground-based AI data centers. SpaceX estimates that the total cost of developing their SpaceXAI space-base AI data center satellites will cost more than $30 billion dollars, and could take longer than a decade to complete.

Elon Musk recently announced a partnership between his companies SpaceX and Tesla to build a massive semiconductor factory in Texas, called Terafab, which will build 1 terawatt of computing capacity each year. The Terafab semiconductor factory will be managed by both SpaceX and Tesla, and will build AI chips that will power all of the cars, robots, spaceships, and data centers that the two companies make each year. But nothing involving AI comes cheap. The initial investment for this AI chip manufacturing facility is expected to be around $55 billion dollars, but the total project could cost north of $119 billion dollars by the time all the phases of the project are completed. This partnership between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla would allow the companies to control their own supply of advanced AI chips, instead of relying on other manufacturers like Nvidia, AMD, or Intel for chips. By owning their own vertically integrated AI chip manufacturing factory they’ll be able to insulate themselves again outside market forces, and better compete with other companies in the vehicle, robotic, and AI data center industries. When the Terafab AI chip factory is fully up and running it will produce between 100-200 billion custom AI chips and memory per year to supply all of SpaceX and Tesla’s AI needs going forward.

I think it’s clear that Elon Musk's vision for SpaceX is bigger and more grandiose than anyone could have guessed when he founded SpaceX back in 2002. His singular focus of one day building a rocket powerful enough to be able to launch into space a ship that is capable of traveling to the moon, and one day Mars, has been one of the guiding philosophies of SpaceX, and has helped to build the company’s ethos and culture. SpaceX’s planned IPO this Summer, which will value the company at close to $2 trillion dollars is the culmination of one man’s vision over the last 2 decades. I can’t begin to imagine where SpaceX will, or what they’ll be able to accomplish, in the next 20 years.

Nvidia and Corning are teaming up on a massive deal that will see Nvidia invest $500 million dollars into Corning to build three new factories in North Carolina and Texas to manufacture fiber optic cabling. The partnership will help Corning expand their fiber optic manufacturing capacity 10X and create 3,000 jobs. What’s in it for Nvidia? This added manufacturing capacity will help Corning bring new products to market that Nvidia can use to run their data centers faster using fiber optics instead of copper. As a part of the deal Nvidia has an option to invest an additional $2.7 billion dollars in for further expansion of Corning’s manufacturing capacity.

The FCC received over 2,000 complaints, from people who obviously have nothing better to do than complain, about Bad Bunny’s performance at the last Super Bowl Halftime Show. The biggest complaint was that he only spoke Spanish during his performance. I agree this was different, but his performance transcended language and told a great story that was a lot of fun to watch. Different doesn’t mean bad. How many Super Bowl Halftime Shows have we watched that weren’t very good because the artists just sang their 20-year old hits from a stage and barely moved around? At least Bad Bunny’s performance was exciting to watch.

The other big complaint was some viewers believed that the NFL should have chosen an American to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. I’ve got news for ya’ll haters that wrote into the FCC to complain - Bad Bunny IS American! He was born in Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. territory. He’s a U.S. citizen, and has a U.S. passport! And yes he does speak English, but his target audience is Spanish speaking. And what most viewers didn’t understand is that the NFL have been trying to expand their audience for the last few years, and bringing in Bad Bunny to perform for an audience of 128.2 million viewers was a great way for them to bring in a whole new fan base….that just might happen to not speak English. So what!

And since, as I just clarified Bad Bunny is actually a U.S. citizen, I’ve put together a list of some of the non-American performers at the Super Bowl Halftime Show that no one got upset about when they performed since they sang in English including Rihanna in 2023, The Weeknd in 2021, Shakira in 2020, Coldplay in 2016, The Who in 2010, The Rolling Stones in 2006, Paul McCartney in 2005, Shania Twain in 2003, and U2 in 2002.

In closing, haters gonna hate, but I’ll show up to watch any artist that brings something new to the Super Bowl Halftime show.

Cuba is building a massive network of solar parks in record time, and they have China to thank for all the help. The Trump administration is currently blocking the delivery of oil to the Caribbean country, so Cuba has had to get creative in how they provide power to their citizens. China has stepped up and provided $117 million dollars worth of solar panels to Cuba, which is a big jump from the $3 million dollars in solar panels that Cuba imported in 2025. This is all part of a Chinese rescue package that Xi Jinping has approved in addition to $80 million dollars in emergency financial aid to help Cuba build 2,000 megawatts of clean solar energy capacity to keep the lights on.

Anthropic and SpaceX are shaking up the technology world with a massive new AI computing deal that will give Anthropic full access to SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data center located in Memphis, Tennessee. How much could this massive partnership actually be worth? Experts say that Anthropic could pay between $3-$4 billion dollars a year to SpaceX for this computing capacity. Investors are even more excited as Anthropic prepares to close a funding round that could value it at more than $1 trillion dollars.

In other SpaceX news, Elon Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX are teaming up to launch a giant AI chip manufacturing complex in Texas called Terafab. And as with everything AI, it won’t come cheap. The multi-phase AI chip manufacturing project will cost an initial $55 billion dollars, but could cost as much as $119 billion dollars in the end to build a vertically integrated facility to produce advanced AI microchips and memory exclusively for Tesla and SpaceX.

What started as a funny viral video on the internet has quickly transformed into a massive financial movement to try to buy Spirit Airlines and relaunch the discount airline. TikTok creator Hunter Peterson made a viral post suggesting the people should come together to crowdsource a buyout of Spirit Airlines, then fans flooded his new website with offers to invest over $335 million dollars in nonbinding pledges. Now Hunter Peterson is getting serious about wanting to make a real offer to buyout of Spirit Airlines, but there’s obviously a big difference between going viral and actually putting together a funding package to acquire a defunct airline

Spirit Airlines has around $1.7 billion dollars in assets, including aircraft, engines, parts, and terminal gates at 80 airports in the U.S., Caribbean, and South America. Spirit Airlines also has approximately $8.1 billion dollars in debt. These debt holders were the major reason that Spirit Airlines couldn’t come to an agreement with the Trump administration on a bailout deal worth $500 million dollars in exchange for the U.S. government taking a 90% stake in the airline.

So while it’s nice to create a viral video singing Kumbaya, things in the real world cost money, and sadly for Spirit Airlines it looks like no one is flying in to rescue them.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) just sent shockwaves through the oil industry by quitting the OPEC oil cartel. Why is the country walking away from their long term alliance with Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC? Well, the country announced their exit after having invested over $150 billion dollars to expand their oil production capacity to 5 million barrels a day, but OPEC wouldn’t let them pump that much because of the quotas OPEC imposes on member countries, so the UAE said “See ya!”. Now the UAE is free to pump as much oil as they want, and with oil prices at record highs due to the war in Iran, UAE saw their opportunity and jumped at it!

Every single year when the NBA basketball season wraps up the sports world starts talking about this could be the year that LeBron James finally decides to hang it up and retire from the NBA. Now that the Los Angeles Lakers have been eliminated from the 2026 NBA playoffs in their second-round loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the rumor mill is spinning at full speed with tales that this is the year LeBron James could hang up his jersey for good.

LeBron James has played 23 years in the NBA, and he has a net worth of between $1.2-$1.4 billion dollars, so he could just take his ball and go home. It’s not like LeBron James would be bored in retirement. He already has a booming business empire that he’s built, and he’s only getting started.

Stepping away from the court would allow LeBron James to focus entirely on his massive business empire, including running his production, media, marketing, and entertainment firm SpringHill Company. LeBron James also has investments in Blaze Pizza, Lobos 1707 tequila, as well as an equity stake in Fenway Sports Group, which owns major teams including the Boston Red Sox in the MLB), Liverpool FC  in the English Premier League, RFK Racing in NASCAR.

So maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if LeBron James were to retire. At least he wouldn’t be bored.

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The Business Behind The News is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.