SpaceX's India Standoff Clouds a Bigger Story: Wall Street Is Repricing the Orbit
Published on 10/08/2026 at 20:11 | Editorial boerse-global.de
SpaceX finds itself pulled in two directions at once. In India, a regulatory logjam has turned into a public spat. In the United States, the company is quietly being valued less like a rocket builder and more like the landlord of orbital computing infrastructure.
The stock slipped 3.9% to EUR 143.84 on the day, down from a prior close of EUR 149.72, as investors digested delays to Starlink's commercial debut in India. The immediate trigger was a claim from CEO Elon Musk, who accused unnamed "oligarchs" of blocking the venture's path.
New Delhi pushed back the following day. According to Reuters, Indian officials rejected Musk's characterization outright, insisting the satellite communications approval process is running fairly and without discrimination. Three providers are currently working through mandatory security reviews. For its part, Starlink is still waiting on state security clearances, spectrum allocation and final licenses.
Building Before the Green Light
Even with approvals outstanding, SpaceX has not been idle on the ground. Starlink executive Lauren Dreyer said the company has already erected 20 gateway sites across India and developed India-specific security controls. Commercial service, however, remains contingent on the pending regulatory sign-offs.
The India friction sits alongside a pair of operational wins. NASA confirmed that the Crew-12 Dragon capsule splashed down safely off the coast of Los Angeles, returning four crew members to Earth after 237 days aboard the International Space Station. A day earlier, the FCC granted partial approval for a constellation of 15,000 satellites designed to connect mobile devices directly. Under the terms of the license, half the fleet must be in orbit by October 7, 2032, with the full constellation deployed by October 7, 2035.
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That approval widens the long-term reach of the satellite network considerably — and carries a matching price tag, since the global ground and space infrastructure must keep expanding to support it.
A $40 Billion Bet on Compute in the Sky
Financing that buildout is where the story gets interesting. Reuters reported that SpaceX is seeking roughly $40 billion to procure Nvidia processors, with Apollo Global Management expected to lead the package and PIMCO among the parties in talks. The transaction is anticipated to close in 2027.
The scale of that figure explains why Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas framed the company differently on Monday. Jonas reiterated an "Overweight" rating and a $300 price target, arguing SpaceX looks cheap on a growth-adjusted basis. His case rests on future opportunities in artificial intelligence and computing power, plus the imminent 15th test flight of the Starship system.
The stock currently trades at EUR 149.32, about 23% below its 52-week high of EUR 194.46 — a level that already prices in substantial growth expectations.
From Launch Pad to Platform
The shift Jonas is describing reflects a broader change in how institutions assess the company. Where transport cost per kilogram of payload once dominated the analysis, the interplay between global data transmission and orbital infrastructure now commands attention. Control the access to orbit, the thinking goes, and you set the rules for every network built on top of it. SpaceX moves, in this reading, from haulage contractor to platform operator.
What gives those ambitions credibility is the cadence of the operation itself. On October 1, the company ran three successful missions in quick succession: the NASA Crew-13 launch, whose crew reached the ISS after eight hours of flight; a Falcon 9 flying the Transporter-18 rideshare with numerous small satellites, including Google's Suncatcher project; and a Falcon Heavy launch for a U.S. government reconnaissance mission.
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That tempo forms the industrial base for far grander designs. If satellite fleets stop merely relaying signals and start acting as interconnected compute nodes, the line between telecommunications and cloud infrastructure blurs. Low Earth orbit becomes the strategic backbone for data-hungry applications on the ground, from autonomous systems to worldwide connectivity.
Starship and the Ground Game
Scaling all of this still hinges on Starship. Flight 14 reached orbit on September 28 but ended early for safety reasons. Meanwhile, the FAA opened a supplemental environmental review on September 29 for the SLC-37 launch complex in Florida, where SpaceX aims for as many as 76 launches per year — a target that will require the agency to amend the existing license.
For public markets, the yardstick has clearly moved. Valuing SpaceX is no longer a matter of engines, payload capacity and launch pads alone. The central question is increasingly how hardware, computing architecture and global infrastructure monopolies can be monetized over the long run — a question that will not be settled by a licensing delay in New Delhi, however loudly it echoes in the meantime.
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