“Because what do all of these things need? Whether it's Robotaxi or whether it's data centers in space, they need money, right? And money needs a narrative. And this is just another one of the narratives to stack on top to say, here's how we can drive incremental value.”
Decoder with Nilay Patel · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · October 2026
Piecyk is explaining why SpaceX would move into cell service. He points out that US telcos carry about a trillion dollars of enterprise value. The open question, he says, is how SpaceX splits scarce capital between this and its other bets.
Transcript
…mean, I don't think it's an either or. And I would think that when you look at people's attempt to justify the valuation of SpaceX, a lot of that value is going to land on data centers in space and the data centers on the ground. And that's where a lot of the value and Starlink to a certain extent.
But that's not the launch business, which theoretically is their business, right? It's not even the AI provision business, right? We're describing them as a hyperscaler.
Yeah, exactly. And well, the AI, those are other big chunks of it. There's a lot of different stories here, but it doesn't mean that they don't pursue this if having connectivity and constellations. And they're talking about connectivity in space, right? Because they believe that there's going to be a demand for connectivity between the data centers, whether it's theirs or others and their constellations. There are already data centers that I think are using their constellation to connect. So I think when they looked at it, it was just another part of the narrative that you build in terms of SpaceX and justifying the valuation. Because what do all of these things need? Whether it's Robotaxi or whether it's data centers in space or data, they need money, right? And money needs a narrative. And this is just another one of the narrative to stack on top to say, here's how we can drive incremental value. And the value is, if you look at the enterprise values of these telcos in the United States, you're talking about like a trillion dollars, right? So that's…
How much of this is just Elon needs to supply connectivity to his own cars and his own factories and his own robots, and he'll just be his own best customer?
I don't think that's it. I think they really want to, they think they really want to build a revenue business out of it. In fact, they're going to use the cars as like hotspots where they'll put Starlinks on there and then use them as like distribution points. That's part, that's going to be part…
I do want to end by talking about the existing telcos and what competition might do to them because I think that's a fascinating dynamic. They are clearly not ready for an actual aggressive competitor. But I want to stick with what you just said for a minute. If I pull that apart, it sounds like…
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