SpaceX Pours $16.8 Billion Into Texas Chip Plant as Starlink's US Subscriber Base Nearly Triples
Published on 08/16/2026 at 06:30 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The numbers tell two stories at once. SpaceX is burning through cash at a ferocious clip — $541 million in net losses last quarter — while simultaneously placing bets large enough to reshape the company's identity. The latest wager: a $16.8 billion joint investment with Tesla in a Texas semiconductor facility dubbed "Terafab," slated for Grimes County and designed to produce advanced AI chips for orbital computing.
That figure roughly matches what SpaceX already spent on capital expenditures in the second quarter alone, when investment outlays hit $18.37 billion. The chip plant is just one piece of a broader pivot that extends well beyond rocketry, encompassing land-based mobile services, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and an increasingly dominant satellite internet business.
Starlink's Meteoric Rise
The Federal Communications Commission's latest "Section 706" report, published Friday, revealed that Starlink now counts more than 7 million subscribers in the United States alone — up from roughly 2 million at the end of 2025. The explosive growth validates what the company's first earnings report as a publicly traded entity suggested earlier this month: Starlink is carrying SpaceX toward profitability.
Revenue for the second quarter of 2026 climbed 92 percent year over year to $7.81 billion, while the net loss narrowed from $1.008 billion in the year-ago period to $541 million. The subscriber base reached 12 million globally during the same stretch.
The prioritization of Starlink comes at a cost to the traditional launch business. A Reuters analysis found that roughly 79 percent of Falcon-9 launch capacity is now reserved for internal Starlink missions, pushing external customers' wait times to 2028. The operational satellite constellation has grown to 10,971 units, with two recent launches — 24 satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base and 29 from Cape Canaveral on consecutive days — demonstrating the cadence.
While SpaceX scales its orbital infrastructure, many businesses overlook a different kind of risk: workplace safety compliance. A free toolkit with 41 ready-to-use templates and checklists helps you document hazards properly and stay ahead of regulatory expectations. Download the free Risk Assessment Toolkit
Beyond Satellites: AI and Mobile Ambitions
The Terafab project with Tesla marks SpaceX's most concrete step into semiconductor manufacturing, following an early-August announcement of a partnership with Nvidia focused on "Space Compute." The company is also pursuing a takeover of Anysphere, the developer behind the AI coding assistant Cursor, with the multibillion-dollar deal nearing completion.
In a separate move that rattled US telecom investors, SpaceX told shareholders that a land-based mobile service could operate capital-efficiently and eventually compete with Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Reuters reported the disclosure caught the mobile sector off guard — a sign of how seriously the market now takes SpaceX's expansion plans.
Starship's Next Milestone
Attention now turns to the next Starship test flight, targeted for late August pending regulatory approval. The mission would mark the first attempt to catch the upper stage with the launch tower during landing — a maneuver that, if successful, would represent a significant step toward rapid reusability.
Stock Recovers From Lockup Jitters
The shares have staged a notable comeback since the expiration of the initial lockup period for insider sales roughly two weeks ago. After initially coming under pressure, the stock has recovered 21.5 percent. Friday's close landed at EUR 120.96, down 1.2 percent on the day but up 5.1 percent for the week and 2.7 percent over the past month.
The recovery masks a wider gap: the stock remains 38 percent below its 52-week high of EUR 194.46, reached in June, though it now sits 33 percent above the early-August low. The 30-day annualized volatility of 93 percent underscores just how turbulent trading in the name remains.
Just as SpaceX manages complex operational risks across multiple frontiers, your business faces its own compliance challenges. Over 37,000 UK companies use a free Health & Safety toolkit covering everything from fire protection to COSHH assessments. Get the free Health & Safety Toolkit
For investors, the calculus is straightforward but demanding: a company with explosive subscriber growth, multiple parallel growth engines, and a widening technological moat — offset by persistent losses, enormous capital requirements, and a valuation that swings wildly with each headline. The Terafab investment, the Starship test, and the Starlink subscriber trajectory will each play a role in determining whether the current optimism is justified.
