There were article claiming "$8b profit" but relabeling EBITDA as profit. EBITDA only tells you that Starlink makes money on a satellite once it is already in space and connected to a user. It deletes the cost of building the satellite, launching the satellite, the user equipment manufacturing, and just about all other substantial expenses. Not to mention payments servicing all their debt and Starship development.
The fact a Starlink satellite only has a < 5 year lifetime and ~2 starlink sats burn up in the atmosphere every single day is entirely left out as well.
Starlink is based on the strategic defense initiative (SDI). Both reusable rockets (DC-X) and large satellite constellations (Brilliant Pebbles) were SDI inventions.
SpaceX was in fact founded with the architect of SDI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin who went from the CIA to become head of NASA and funded the early SpaceX (10x from what Musk himself put in!)
Now in 2026, SpaceX is the frontrunner for the Golden Dome, which is an SDI reboot.
ah good to know....it seems this history is kinda scrubbed from at least a quick Google search of the company's history.
I do remember DC-X, mostly as when I was a kid, that program coincided with when the web became popular, and I remember (hopefully somewhat accurately) downloaded jpeg/gif files from NASA publicity releases of that rocket over my 2400 bps modem
Such a cynical take! Starlink made Golden Dome possible. It is easy to make up conspiracies post-hoc while forgetting that they were ridiculed when they announced it and the "experts" opined that it is impossible to do.
> SpaceX was in fact founded with the architect of SDI
This is highly unfounded speculation. Griffin went to work for "In-Q-Tel" after SpaceX was already founded (as said in the link you cited). There is no evidence I could find that they ever invested in SpaceX.
The existence of cheap launch and cheap satellites allowed the (at the time new) Space Force to pivot from large, expensive monolithic satellites to a "proliferated architecture" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Development_Agency#Launc...) at a much lower cost.
Yea .. so new that I have only worked in the industry for 5+ years now. Your link doesn't support anything you said.
What passage in that interview says anything about "In‑Q‑Tel invested in SpaceX" or "CIA funded SpaceX"?
That interview is a NASA oral history of Mike Griffin’s career. It mentions his time at In‑Q‑Tel and later NASA, but it never says In‑Q‑Tel or the CIA funded SpaceX. You’re conflating "this guy once ran a CIA‑linked VC" with "he personally funneled CIA money into SpaceX," which simply isn't true. SpaceX’s early funding is well‑documented as Musk’s own money plus later NASA contracts as a customer, not a CIA equity round.
SpaceX (and Kistler Aerospace, Orbital Sciences etc.) was awarded contracts for commercial transportation to the ISS [1]. NASA’s role was as an anchor customer and partner under a publicly described program to get cargo (and later crew) to ISS via commercial providers. NASA’s commercial cargo program and SpaceX’s contracts are not secret. They were openly competed and publicly announced. That's the opposite of clandestine CIA startup funding.
DoD launch money for SpaceX (EELV/NSSL contracts, etc.) came much later, after Falcon 9 was flying and competing with ULA, and those are again launch service contracts, not "investment".
> Trump admin took this link down off NASA's website but it's archived just before the transition
That interview wasn't mysteriously "scrubbed". The website got updated and you found an old link that wasn't working anymore [2][3]. Not a conspiracy, just garden variety link rot.
Everything I said is correct. Griffin previous led SDI, later controlling NASA, directing 10x funding to SpaceX (before they had ever had any launch success), Griffin having previously been President of In-Q-Tel the venture capital arm of the CIA, Griffin was also part of the original visit to Russia with Musk on 2001 to look at ICBMs.
This is all very well documented. NASA provided the funds, not the CIA directly, so I'm simply not sure why you feel the need to keep insisting on that particular strawman argument. I do hope these facts aren't too bothersome just because they don't quite fit the usual Mars narrative.
Because, wouldn't you know it, Mr. Griffin was also a leader over at the Mars Society! He gave the co-keynote speech for Elon's original Mars Oasis pitch right there at their gathering. You can still find it written down in the old meeting agendas, if you'd ever care to take a look for yourself.
I've been in the industry for 35 years. Don't take everything these magical leaders say at face value. The reality is more down to earth.
The markets are additive. The great thing about Starlink is that it is GLOBAL. Meaning if you want to offer it for ships and planes (where there are no alternatives) you might as well also offer it to RV. And to rural people. And to the military. And you can do so in every country on the whole planet at the same time.
Having a few 1000s of sats to cover the whole planet is crazy efficient.
If you look at just the satellites, the build + launch costs are about $2.5M ea, which is impressive to be sure. But they only last 5 years, so that's $500k per year replacement costs. Then if you look at their capacity, they still can't meet their FCC / RDOF broadband designation speeds, but let's be generous and say they can serve 1000 simultaneous users per satellite (their current ratio, let's say it's good enough, incl. oversubscription ratio). So that already means 50%-100% of the entire monthly Internet bill from a consumer is going to just be replacing satellites. Let alone everything else to be an ISP.
This is very basic math. They need to launch more satellites if they want to hit their RDOF throughput goals and serve customers in the remaining areas. The most valuable extra-rural areas were low hanging fruit and already drying up.. the future addressable market is more dense and competitive suburban areas, which further limits the number of users per satellite because everyone shares the same spot beam spectrum.
But as you know well--having your personal connections to SpaceX it seems as you always defend them on HN--Starlink is about Golden Dome not consumer internet, so the private markets will fund it.
Yes and unless you're paying Starlink say $300/mo, they are taking a loss to serve you internet. Cities are especially difficult for them because more users are in the same spot beam so everyone shares the spectrum and they need even lower oversubscription ratios.
Yeah I don't know about the math. I've seen numbers that differ significantly from yours, but none which make it profitable at a reasonable price. I am sure he will continue to drop launch costs and I assume satellite improvements will make them able to serve more people, maybe orbit longer as they get smaller.
Why would you be "terrified" of space-based ballistic missile defense? Seems a lot better than ground-based interceptors that have a not-great rate of interception.
For trillions of dollars, Golden Dome is unlikely to be effective at interception, but it destabilizes MAD and can be used as a global prompt strike offense weapon.
> golden dome seems less useful by the day now that drones are the new unstoppable weapon of choice
Your thinking is too black-and-white. The emergence of a new technology (drones) does not necessarily make previous technologies (ballistic missiles) obsolete or a non-threat.
What it means is the effective defensive system will need to be bigger and more capable.
And, IIRC, the ballistic missiles are still the more effective weapon in Ukraine and Iran. Long-range drones are easier to intercept cheaper interception technologies are catching up with them: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/10/what-are-the-ukrain....
Drones absolutely make Golden Dome obsolete if they can deliver a nuclear warhead and the purpose of Golden Dome is to win a nuclear war / be impervious to one.
Nuclear war is the justification given for violating all fiscal responsibility with this multi-million dollar taxpayer program.
> Drones absolutely make Golden Dome obsolete if they can deliver a nuclear warhead and the purpose of Golden Dome is to win a nuclear war / be impervious to one.
No they don't, because you can still deliver a warhead with an ICBM. It just means you need the ABM system and and anti-drone system for it to be complete.
And then you need to stop the Poseidon nuclear delivery system, and the suitcase bombs, and the bio weapons.. do you see where this is going?
Absolute security is an illusion. Even Trump understands this, and why he later pivoted to calling Golden Dome an offensive global strike system. Because yes, that's what it is.
> And then you need to stop the Poseidon nuclear delivery system, and the suitcase bombs, and the bio weapons.. do you see where this is going?
Yes, it sounds like you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good: don't build a defense unless it can defeat all threats, all of the time. Go tell that to Ukraine and see what they say.
But even granting what you say for a moment: a defensive system that defeats drones and ICBMs but doesn't defeat nuclear torpedoes is a massive improvement. Sure, it sucks if you live in a coastal city, but inland cities are protected (and the US has a lot of those).
Suitcase nukes and bio weapons are dumb: the former are weak and seem more like a plot device for a action/suspense show than a real threat (beyond random acts of terrorism), the latter seems like a nonstarter because it'd either not be very effective or guarantee blow-back (e.g. your bio-weapon becoming a pandemic that hits everyone).
I think you're missing the point that spending trillions for a boost phase intercept system (even if it worked) has a massive opportunity cost. A diamond door (or gold!) is a terrible investment if adversaries can bypass it through an open window. There is an opportunity cost, not just for balanced security, but also social and economic costs.
But boost intercept doesn't even meaningfully reduce ICBM threats.. adversaries simply build the bypasses that render the "shield" useless. Offense is always easier and cheaper than defense for this sort of system. ASATs, decoys, cyber, jamming are all low hanging fruit. Sending large synchronized volleys is an easy way to exploit GD's interceptor absentee problem (which is approx 1000x worse than a regional system like Iron Dome).
This all amplifies the false premise that the "shield" will work flawlessly, because if you're going to destabilize MAD you better get it right. The fact is interceptors are not even single 9's in the real world with countermeasures, and a Tesla FSD attempt v420.69 doesn't cut it for nuclear war. (Oh don't worry we'll push a patch and next time we won't lose Chicago!)
And like I said, everyone knows this isn't a defense system for those reasons and more. Golden Dome's satellite architecture is effectively an orbital weapons platform capable of offensive global strikes, which fundamentally destabilizes geopolitics. If you're an engineer working on that you better have your eyes wide open and be able to explain why you think this is a good thing.
Don't admire the work SpaceX is doing. It's a scam. They are a defense contractor that pretends to be about Mars. The technology is 100% about Golden Dome. Always was, read their real history,
Mars is a thin cover story to get the engineers to feed the War machine. "National security" / nuclear threat is a great excuse to get politicians to sell out the country.
I thought it was obvious that "God Emporeror of Mars" was a satirical answer. There are a whole bunch of new markets that cheap access to space open up. Like Bezos' dream of in-space manufacturing. Or Musk's dream of data centres in space. Or power gen in space. Or the "cis-lunar economy". Or space tourism. Or He3 on the moon. People will buy SpaceX stock for the potential, even if that potential is pretty much worthless and the chance of SpaceX capturing the gains rather than some other company is fairly low.
"National Security" is just one more in a big list.
No, those other "dreams" were either developed or refined by,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Advisory_Council_o... as pretexts to pursue a space militarization agenda. The history is clear but the New Space propaganda is being fed to the younger generation.
That seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. SpaceX is more important than whatever issue you disagree with Musk about. After graduating with a degree in aerospace engineering in the aughts, I switched to software because the practical alternatives were building missiles for Raytheon or going to GE and trying to figure out how to make gas turbines 1% more efficient. SpaceX jump-started a commercial aerospace industry that was utterly moribund as recently as when Hacker News started up.
Sorry to burst your bubble but SpaceX is Raytheon now. You should look at what they're doing with Starshield, SDA, Golden Dome, NRO, etc. The commercial stuff was small potato stepping stones made more palatable to engineers, but the pivot has already occured.
To be clear, I have great respect for military work. I used to work at a defense contractor. But in terms of building a career, it's a heavily regulated industry with little room for growth. SpaceX is doing defense work, but it has not pivoted to being merely a defense contractor. SpaceX's valuation is triple that of Raytheon and Lockheed put together. The market expects it to continue pushing forward on commercial space.
What’s your basis for saying that? It makes no sense. Even if Golden Dome was a trillion dollars, which it isn’t, that wouldn’t support a $1 trillion valuation. Defense contractors average around 10% profit. Raytheon got $24 billion in government contracts in 2023. Its revenue is about $90 billion, and its valuation is $277 billion.
Funding for Golden Dome was $24 billion in 2025 and 13 billion in 2026. Even if SpaceX got all that money, it wouldn’t move the needle on SpaceX’s valuation.
Traditional defense contractors have low profit margin because of the cost plus pricing on the contracts. They literally are only allowed to charge the cost they incur plus some fixed profit percentage. As such, they have incentive to drive up the costs, so that their profit, while low percentage, is on high base.
SpaceX wouldn’t need to so that. Companies like Anduril already are trying to win contracts on fixed price model, and if they succeed, they’ll have much higher profit margins than Raytheon et al.
The estimates that have Golden Dome at anything close to a trillion dollars are posited on the assumption that it will be much more expensive to build than the administration believes it will take. If it ends up as fixed price bids and costs less than people think, it will be well under $200 billion.
That's right.. and Golden Dome (which is definitely a mult-trillion dollar program if space based weapons are employed) has a bunch of convenient oligarch properties like built-in planned obsolescence with orbital decay that amplifies a launch monopoly.
A moral line is to help the right side with all heart, all mind and all might. If you know any other way to make Russia get off from Ukraine besides tons of cheap weapons - I'm listening. Otherwise, weapons are a necessity.
Right. Not knowing human nature doesn’t mean you won’t be affected by it in ways that you just haven’t thought of or don’t believe could happen to you.
Hamas turned Gaza into a terrorist military installation with tunnels and operatives under and within a heavily populated urban environment. Their civilians were heavily dependent on foreign aid, much of which was used to buy arms and construct the elaborate tunnel system used to stage the Oct attack. If they were in my back yard and I had power and military force, I’d try to minimize civilian casualties but I wouldn’t stop until all of said military infrastructure was completely dismantled. I would prioritize the safety of my own anrmed forces over Gazan civilian casualties. The ideology of those in charge of Gaza and Iran is dedicated to killing Jews and oppressing their own people. I’m not Muslim or Jewish. I just have empathy for Israelis having to live being terrorized constantly while they live in a society that values education, entrepreneurship and freedom. No Jews got into planes to kill Americans. No Jews go out and buy assault rifles and mass shoot American cities. I think there’s a mind virus rooted in Muslim cultures that damns them as well as anyone they are hell bent on terrorizing. Oh, and no Jews killed civilians just because they drew a cartoon of their God.
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