The Falcon 9 rocket launches with Crew 12 from Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (Manuel Mazzanti/Getty Images)

SpaceX to expand Starlink’s mobile coverage as it seeks $1.75 trillion IPO valuation

Starlink expects to connect 25 million monthly users by the end of the year on a service the company says will allow video calls and streaming.

Rani Molla

3/2/26 8:12AM

At the Mobile World Congress keynote Monday morning, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Starlink VP of Engineering Michael Nicolls said the company plans to offer broadband-level cellular service through its direct-to-cell product, now branded Starlink Mobile.

The company aims to grow from 10 million active monthly users today to 25 million by the end of 2026. The service is designed to give consumers access to high-speed internet, including video calls in remote areas using unmodified smartphones.

“ When your phone’s in your pocket, when you’re in your car and you’re connected to Starlink Mobile, it should look and feel like you’re connected to a high-performing 5G terrestrial network,” Nicolls said. “That kind of experience is what we’re shooting for.”

Still, SpaceX emphasized that satellite service is not meant to replace traditional cellular networks. “It cannot provide the data density that terrestrial networks have,” Nicolls said, while contending that it can augment coverage in areas where land-based networks don’t reach or when additional capacity is needed — a category that includes large portions of the US and much of the world.

For now, SpaceX is positioning Starlink Mobile as a complement to carriers like AT&T and Verizon rather than a direct competitor. The service is meant to fill coverage gaps in remote areas, at sea, and during emergencies when terrestrial networks go down. Shotwell noted that T-Mobile was SpaceX’s first — and remains its only — US carrier partner.

The mobile push comes as SpaceX expands its ambitions beyond launch services. Last month, the company announced it had acquired SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, creating a combined company that spans rockets, satellite broadband, mobile connectivity, and artificial intelligence. Bloomberg reported Friday that SpaceX is preparing to file IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission as soon as March, targeting a valuation as high as $1.75 trillion. At the time of the merger, the combined company was valued at around $1.25 trillion. The higher valuation estimate suggests investors see businesses like Starlink’s internet service, and potentially Starlink Mobile, as key drivers of revenue beyond rocket launches.

Chris Stokel-Walker

Bot bias

6/17/26

Companies are getting AI chatbots to smear their competitors

The race to influence AI chatbots is leading to some companies to adopt shady competitive tactics.

Tom Jones6/17/26

Prediction markets have, predictably, been given a boost by the summer of sports

Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen huge upticks in users of late, thanks in no small part to what’s felt like a recent sporting smorgasbord, with major competitions across hockey, basketball, and soccer soaking up fans’ time (and spending, clearly) at the outset of summer.

While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

2026 World Cup Reverses Seasonal Lull for Sports Betting Apps

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

Gold Tesla Cybercabs are piling up, but they’re not picking up passengers yet

Low-volume production started in April. Now people are noticing them more and more in the wild.

Rani Molla6/15/26

Millie Giles

TAKING ACCOUNTS

6/15/26

Britain announces social media ban for under-16s starting early 2027

The UK government plans to use the same model for the restrictions as Australia — but how successful has that case study been so far?

UK Prime Minister Announces Under-16s Social Media Ban

Jon Keegan6/15/26

Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5