Who Owns Starlink? Everything You Need To Know!

Being a Starlink connoisseur, a frequent query that I have often been asked is who is the owner of Starlink.

Apparently, many folks are cautious about trusting a brand like Starlink that has not been in the internet service provider market for long.

So I figured I write this article to finally put an end to this common query and explicitly state the truth about Starlink and where it gets its funds from.

Starlink is a division of SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk. Starlink is still a private company and most of the final executive decisions are governed by Elon. Starlink, operated by SpaceX, was launched in October 2020.

Who Actually Owns Starlink?

Starlink is actually the name given to the satellite internet constellation that orbits the earth in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and is operated by SpaceX.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp, or SpaceX, is a spacecraft manufacturer that is based in the US and was founded by one of the wealthiest men of our time, Elon Musk.

Elon Musk founded SpaceX back in 2002 with the ultimate goal to enable the colonization of Mars, and Starlink is a service that is supposed to help achieve this goal.

Elon Musk holds most of the voting control and half of the company equity for SpaceX and therefore inherits the ownership of Starlink and its internet service.

Can We Trust Starlink?

Trusting Starlink is entirely dependent on user preferences and how the service has impacted and will impact the market in the future.

Sure, the fact that one of the richest men on earth is backing the company can be a sign of faith for a lot of folks, but that is never enough to justify Starlink's future.

Unfortunately, I am neither a time traveler nor a mystic to effectively state as a fact whether Starlink will stand the test of time.

What we can do, however, is gauge the factors of how Starlink has performed in the market so far, and predict their path considering said factors in place.

How Starlink Entered the Market

Starlink was commercially launched back in 2019 to a world where satellite internet connectivity was a very niche service that offered mostly emergency utilities.

Conventionally, satellite internet provider brands operated a big satellite in the geostationary orbit that is 22000 miles from the surface of the earth.

This massive distance meant the speeds and latency of the internet connection were compromised for the sake of massive coverage and low maintenance costs.

Starlink, instead opted for launching multiple smaller satellites in the low earth orbit that is around 300 miles from the surface of the earth.

This meant that speeds and latency were significantly higher, but the overall coverage was low and the costs were very high comparatively.

Starlink boosted the coverage by launching multiple satellites.

In fact, Starlink holds the record for the most active satellites currently orbiting the earth, with the figure reaching 3,300 satellites as of late 2022.

All this culminated in a situation where users were now able to access high-speed internet even in remote areas at comparable costs to the competing satellite internet services.

This gave Starlink the momentum to push for a bigger audience and therefore entered the market with a huge bang.

Current situation of Starlink

Starlink is still one of the top providers of Satellite internet connections in the world, with over 400,000 subscribers worldwide, with many still on a waiting list.

The overall reception of the service is also very positive, with most users content with the speeds and latency compared to competing brands.

A primary technology completion to Starlink is the rise of 5G, which provides great speeds wirelessly.

But 5G is still in its early stages, and coverage is still a major hurdle that the tech needs to get over.

Amazon also has Project Kuiper up in the works, which intends to launch a service similar to Starlink by operating satellites in low earth orbit.

But Starlink does have a major headstart on this front, and it will take Amazon a lot of time and resources to compete fairly with Starlink

In conclusion, with users growing by the day, it is safe to say that Starlink has still not peaked and will continue to grow as per the trends.

Can We Buy Starlink Stocks?

Unfortunately, Elon Musk is yet to take Starlink public.

But Elon did mention that there are plans for taking Starlink public soon, but just not in the near future.

There are pre-IPOs and grey markets available which allow you to invest in Starlink indirectly, but that is not a method I would recommend.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is Starlink more secure than broadband internet?

Starlink communicates wirelessly over long distances and therefore is more susceptible to security flaws compared to a standard wired broadband connection.

Is Starlink in beta?

Starlink has officially been out of beta since October 2021.

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