Elon Musk Targets 1 Megaton Per Year For AI Satellites, Touts Satellite Factories On Moon: 'Non-Trivial Progress Towards...'

SpaceX and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has reaffirmed his orbital datacenter goals and highlighted some ambitious targets for his plan.

Factories On The Moon

Investor Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, on Sunday, touted an open-source model that predicted SpaceX would boast a valuation close to $2.5 trillion by 2030. Responding to her post, Musk weighed in and shared that there was another factor to be considered for SpaceX's valuation.

He said that Satellites with "localized AI compute" capabilities beaming data down from orbit "will be the lowest cost way to generate AI bitstreams in <3 years," Musk shared. He also added that it was the fastest way to scale AI operations within 4 years, as "easy sources of electrical power" are scarce on Earth.

Mass Driver Goal

"1 megaton/year of satellites with 100kW per satellite yields 100GW of AI added per year with no operating or maintenance cost," Musk said, adding that the satellites would be connected via "high-bandwidth lasers to the Starlink constellation."

Musk also touted building satellite factories on the Moon to send AI satellites into space without rockets using a "mass driver," which is a conceptual method of propulsion that involves accelerating payloads using magnetic levitation via electromagnets, enabling "non-trivial progress towards becoming a Kardashev II civilization."

SpaceX IPO, Non-Federal Revenue Streams

The news comes amid buzz around SpaceX's potential IPO, which Musk had hinted at last month during Tesla's investor meeting, after reports emerged that the commercial space flight company was targeting an $800 billion valuation and a potential public listing next year.

Meanwhile, Musk also hit back at critics who argued that SpaceX was subsidized by NASA, sharing that the agency would make up for over 5% of the company's total revenue, adding that Starlink is one of the primary revenue drivers for SpaceX instead.