SpaceX CEO Elon Musk used a company town hall, posted to X, to dramatically expand the public vision for what Starlink is meant to become.
“Almost 11,000 satellites in orbit. That’s almost twice as many satellites as everyone else combined. And with Starlink V3 and beyond, we’ll go to 100,000 satellites,” Musk said at the event.
Musk added that Starlink “might end up doing over 90% of all Internet traffic” and described the effort as rebuilding “the entire Internet in space.”
The scale gap between Starlink and its publicly traded rivals has grown to an almost incomparable degree in 2026.
AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS), the closest publicly traded direct-to-device competitor, currently has just 13 spacecraft in orbit and is targeting roughly 45 satellites by early 2027.
AST CEO Abel Avellan told analysts that the company’s strategy is intentionally distinct, saying “We are building the direct-to-device (D2D) network of the future today in partnership with, not in competition with, mobile network operators.”
AST reported $31.52 million in second-quarter revenue alongside a $125.9 million loss tied to the BB7 launch incident, with shares up roughly 50% over the past year but only 2% year to date.
Legacy satellite operator Viasat (NASDAQ: VSAT) faces pressure from the other direction, with fixed broadband services falling 27% year over year last quarter despite defense backlog strength lifting the stock sharply year to date.
Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg told investors “the combination of growth in the space market, and our business and technical progress is creating more opportunity for us than ever,” even as core broadband metrics declined.
Musk’s framing of Starlink as a direct competitor to AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) carries new weight given those carriers are betting on AST SpaceMobile for their satellite-to-cell strategies.
AT&T CEO John Stankey argued “network performance and operating scale can’t be matched” with fiber locations at 38.6 million, while VZ stock is up 15.3% year to date against AT&T’s 2.4% decline over the same period.
Verizon CEO Dan Schulman is leaning on artificial intelligence to drive future growth, stating “with the emergence of AI infrastructure revenue, we are fundamentally reshaping Verizon’s growth trajectory.”
T-Mobile US (NASDAQ: TMUS) took a different approach entirely, embedding Starlink directly into its consumer offering rather than partnering with AST.
T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan told investors “we see a tremendous runway for growth across both wireless and broadband, as well as new businesses. We’re just getting started,” as Q2 postpaid service revenue rose 12.6% to $15.85 billion.
SemiAnalysis projects that one gigawatt of SpaceX inference capacity could generate approximately $31 billion to $48 billion in annualized revenue under its Anthropic and Google deals.
By comparison, AST reaffirmed 2026 revenue guidance of $150 million to $200 million, with a revenue backlog of around $1.3 billion, illustrating the enormous financial gulf between SpaceX and its public market rivals.
If Musk delivers even a fraction of the 100,000-satellite roadmap, the addressable market shifts rapidly, leaving investors with a very short list of public tickers through which to participate.
