SpaceX Has Asked for a Million Satellites, About 90 Times Starlink
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16 OCTOBER 2026
By Mike Leesponsored The 100x Starlink Blueprint |
 Starlink was just the warm-up. Elon Musk’s $1.75 Trillion " Project Unlimited " is preparing to scale that network 100-fold — launching 1 million advanced satellites to build the ultimate Artificial Intelligence network in outer space. By moving AI off-world, he is bypassing Earth's limitations entirely. Discover the under-the-radar supplier building this massive orbital infrastructure before deadline. |
Three Numbers to Start
1M | satellites SpaceX has asked the FCC to approve for orbital AI data centres, about 90 times the Starlink fleet in orbit. |
40M oz | the gold the Homestake mine in South Dakota’s Black Hills produced between 1876 and 2001. |
+3.5% | the rise in restaurant menu prices in the year to September, against 1.8% for groceries. |
ad Starlink was just the warm-up. See The 100x Starlink Blueprint |
SpaceX Has Asked for a Million Satellites
In January SpaceX applied to the Federal Communications Commission for up to one million satellites that would work as orbital data centres for artificial intelligence. The FCC accepted the filing for review on 4 February. The satellites would fly between 500 and 2,000 kilometres up, pass data to each other by laser and run almost entirely on solar power. Each would last about five years and shed heat by radiating it into space. SpaceX also asked for waivers from some of the FCC’s deployment milestones and bond requirements, and the commission took public comments until early March.
SpaceX says each tonne of satellite would carry about 100 kilowatts of computing power. At a million tonnes launched a year, once Starship flies routinely, that would add 100 gigawatts of AI computing capacity every year. The filing calls orbital data centres the most efficient way to meet the demand for AI computing, and describes the network as a first step towards a Kardashev II civilisation, one that harnesses the full output of its star.
Starlink shows how fast SpaceX can build in orbit. About 11,156 Starlink satellites were in orbit on 9 October, out of an estimated 12,988 launched, and the service has passed 10 million subscribers. A million-satellite network would be about 90 times the size of today’s fleet.
On the ground, power is the limit. In PJM, the grid operator for 13 states and Washington, DC, the capacity auction price rose from $28.92 per megawatt-day for 2024/25 to $329.17 for 2026/27, and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis attributed 63% of the 2025/26 jump to data centres. A satellite in sunlight does not bid in that auction.
Starlink Is the Profitable Part of a $1.77 Trillion Company
SpaceX listed on Nasdaq on 12 June at $135 a share, a valuation of $1.77 trillion and the largest IPO on record. The shares closed the first day at $161, peaked at $211 and fell back below the offer price within about a month.
The prospectus showed where the money comes from. Starlink brought in $11.4 billion of revenue in 2025 and $4.4 billion of profit, and it was the only profitable segment. Its revenue reached $3.26 billion in the first quarter of 2026, and the prospectus projected subscribers rising from about 10 million to nearly 17 million during the year.
Every satellite in a constellation that size needs parts: solar arrays, laser terminals, radios, chips and frames, made by suppliers that sell into each launch. The note at the top of this letter names one of them. Starlink was the warm-up. The million-satellite filing is the build-out.
The Black Hills Produced 40 Million Ounces of Gold
Prospectors found gold at the site of the Homestake mine in 1876, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and the town of Lead grew up around the shafts. By the time production stopped in 2001, Homestake had produced about 40 million ounces, and its shafts reached 8,000 feet, the deepest of any gold mine in the Western Hemisphere. The old workings now house the Sanford Underground Research Facility, a physics laboratory. At about $4,190 an ounce, Homestake’s lifetime output would be worth about $168 billion today.
The United States mined about 160 tonnes of gold in 2025, down from 163 tonnes in 2024 but worth about $17 billion, 32% more, according to the US Geological Survey. Nevada produced 64% of it and Alaska 22%. More than 40 lode mines operate in 12 states, and the 25 largest operations account for about 94% of output. The country holds an estimated 3,000 tonnes of reserves and ranks fifth among producers, behind China, Russia, Australia and Canada, in a world that mined about 3,300 tonnes last year.
Central banks are still buying at these prices. The World Gold Council counted net purchases of 289 tonnes in the second quarter, the most for any second quarter on record and 62% more than a year earlier, led by Poland with 51 tonnes and China with 33.
Nevada and Alaska dominate today, and Homestake ran for 125 years before it closed. At three times its 2019 average price, gold changes the arithmetic in older districts, where the roads, the geological maps and the mill sites already exist.
Whitney Tilson, a 30-year Wall Street veteran, travelled to the Black Hills near Mount Rushmore to see a small mining company he calls one of the most exciting opportunities he has come across. The history is public. His trip notes are below.
sponsored Gold Near Mount Rushmore |
 Thirty-year Wall Street veteran Whitney Tilson just took a trip out to Mount Rushmore to see what he calls "one of the most exciting investment opportunities I've ever come across." A small mining firm just uncovered one of America's biggest gold deposits since 1870 there. And it has sparked the investment opportunity of a lifetime. |
Menu Prices Are Rising Almost Twice as Fast as Groceries
Prices for food away from home rose 3.5% in the year to September, according to Wednesday’s inflation report. Restaurant prices rose another 0.2% in September alone. Food at home rose 1.8% over the year and fell 0.1% in the month.
The National Restaurant Association expects the industry to sell $1.55 trillion this year and to employ 15.8 million people, after adding more than 100,000 jobs. More than nine in ten operators told it that food, labour, insurance, energy and card fees were significant challenges.
Labour is the cost an operator can change one station at a time. The fry station repeats the same task hundreds of times a shift, at high heat, from opening to close, and every hour a machine covers is an hour the manager does not have to staff.
Miso Robotics builds Flippy, a robot that runs the fry station, and counts White Castle, Jersey Mike’s and Cinnabon among its customers. It is raising money from individual investors under Regulation A.
sponsored The Fry-Station Robot |
Why’s This NVIDIA Collaborator Robot Called Flippy? (Invest Now) We all see robots flipping on social media. But a french-fry robot named Flippy? That doesn’t make sense. Miso Robotics' share price jumps in days — this is your last shot at today's price, has heard it all before. But ask restaurant operators in the $1T fast-food industry like White Castle who deploy Miso’s Flippy Fry Station robot, and it sure makes a lot more sense. Flippy FLIPS restaurant operator’s bottom lines, helping boost a location’s profits up to 4X. And with Miso having a $4B/year US revenue opportunity for just the fry station alone and a special collaboration with NVIDIA, these french fries are way beyond small potatoes.  Right now — while everyone else is just talking about AI robots — Flippy is already flipping fries at White Castle, Jersey Mike's, and Cinnabon. This window won't stay open. After Miso recently acquired two major new product assets, Flippy has become the star of a rapidly expanding ecosystem. Customers think of what Miso is building as the operating system for modern restaurants. Miso just added big-name customers like Jersey Mike’s and Cinnabon… and grew its patent portfolio by ~10X to 300+. On top of that, their robots even started entering college campuses, NBA arenas, and a new national burger chain. Over 44,000 everyday investors have already claimed their stake. Every day you wait is a day someone else takes your spot. This isn't a "someday" — it's right now. The $5.60 price is gone for good. Miso Robotics is offering securities through the use of an Offering Statement that has been qualified by the Securities and Exchange Commission under Tier II of Regulation A. A copy of the Final Offering Circular that forms a part of the Offering Statement may be obtained from: invest.misorobotics.com/ |
What Is Scheduled
21 Oct | Tesla reports third-quarter results after the close. |
28 Oct | the Fed’s rate decision. On Wednesday traders put the odds of a hike at about 41%. |
3 Nov | the midterm elections. |
10 Nov | the October consumer price index. |
ad By moving AI off-world, he is bypassing Earth’s limitations entirely. See The 100x Starlink Blueprint |
One Hundred Gigawatts
100 GW | The AI computing capacity SpaceX says it could add each year once Starship launches a million tonnes of satellites annually. The supplier behind that build-out is in the note at the top. |
Forget the hot picks — own the infrastructure before the launch makes the news. Because the best trade you’ll ever make is the loss you never took. Mike LeeDeals CatchersThanks for reading. Have a good weekend. |
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