Starlink Earns $1.4 Billion After Elon Musk Projected $12 Billion

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service brought in $1.4 billion in revenue last year, a sizable jump from the $222 million it made in 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The revenue, while a significant increase from the previous year, fell short of billionaire CEO Elon Musk’s projections during a 2015 presentation to investors.

In the first three months of 2023, SpaceX reported it had generated $55 million in profit and $1.5 billion in revenue, marking its first profit after two years of financial losses, according to documents viewed by WSJ. It marks a stark contrast to Musk’s forecast in 2015, claiming Starlink would reel in a $7 billion operating profit in 2022 and would generate nearly $12 billion in revenue, according to WSJ.

Starlink’s revenue report comes as Musk recently faces criticism for his refusal to provide Starlink satellites to Crimea to bolster Ukraine’s war efforts. A new Musk biography released on Tuesday revealed that Musk had reportedly disabled Starlink satellites in Crimea as Ukraine prepared to launch a drone strike on Russia’s fleet. Musk reportedly denied Ukraine’s urgent request to turn on the satellites, and in a Twitter post last week, he wrote: “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

SpaceX has roughly 4,200 Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit and has made it available in 60 countries while also trying to appeal to other consumers by making user kits available at Home Depot and Best Buy. Earlier this year, Gwynne Shotwell, who leads SpaceX alongside Musk, told the WSJ she expects Starlink to bring in more revenue by the end of 2023.