SpaceX president says 'there is plenty of room for competition,' as Starlink nears 5 million customers

SpaceX's second-in-command urged connected rivals successful comments Friday, describing contention arsenic steadfast for Elon Musk's abstraction company.

"I anticipation others tin drawback up, right? Competition is bully for industries. … It keeps america tight; it keeps america precise focused," SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said, speaking astatine the 2024 Baron Investment Conference successful New York.

"It's going to beryllium hard to drawback us, but I surely anticipation radical try," Shotwell added.

SpaceX has reached a ascendant presumption successful the planetary motorboat manufacture arsenic its semi-reusable Falcon rockets person launched much than 100 times this twelvemonth and counting. The adjacent closest U.S. rocket company, Rocket Lab, has launched to orbit 12 times this year, with others successful the azygous digits.

Additionally, the 15,000-person institution has won billions of dollars successful authorities contracts from the Department of Defense and NASA, serving the second arsenic the sole U.S. enactment for delivering unit to and from the International Space Station with its Dragon capsule.

And SpaceX's Starlink outer net web is present serving astir 5 cardinal customers, Shotwell said.

Starlink has go disruptive to incumbent outer telecommunications companies. With astir 7,000 Starlink satellites successful orbit, SpaceX has expanded Starlink's merchandise offerings from consumers into endeavor markets specified as aviation and maritime.

But the outer broadband marketplace is "gigantic," Shotwell said. Several companies are moving connected competitors to Starlink, specified arsenic Eutelsat's OneWeb, Amazon's Project Kuiper, Telesat's Lightspeed and AST SpaceMobile.

Billionaire capitalist Ron Baron, who said his eponymous firm's ownership of privately held SpaceX banal stands astatine implicit $2 billion, noted that astir 30% of the world's 8 cardinal radical don't person entree to broadband.

"I would emotion to accidental … SpaceX is going to service each of them," Shotwell told Baron, but "there volition beryllium contention — I deliberation there's plentifulness of country successful this industry, plentifulness of country for competition."

Shotwell noted that SpaceX is besides steadily advancing the improvement of its behemoth Starship rocket, precocious catching the vehicle's booster on the archetypal effort during its 5th trial formation past month.

"Starship is truly a replacement. It obsoletes Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule. Now, we're not shutting down Falcon, we are not shutting down Dragon — we'll beryllium flying that for six to 8 much years," she said.

"But ultimately, radical are going to privation to alert connected Starship: It's bigger, it's much comfortable, it volition beryllium little expensive," Shotwell added.

SpaceX is targeting arsenic soon arsenic Monday for Starship's sixth formation test, aiming to further the rocket's capabilities with further demonstrations during the mission. The Starship strategy is designed to beryllium afloat reusable and aims to go a caller method of flying cargo and radical beyond Earth, dissimilar its Falcon rockets, which lone person reusable boosters and nosecones.

"We conscionable passed 400 [total] launches connected Falcon and I would not beryllium amazed if we alert 400 Starship launches successful the adjacent 4 years," Shotwell said.