Ca$htag$: SPCX Builds Base Case in Starlink, X & Grok Offer Bullish Catalysts

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

It's time for Cash Tags, and for that, we bring in Megan Brantley, VP of Research at LikeFolio. We're so glad you are with us. We're talking all about SpaceX. You have some great data that you shared with us ahead of time. I was looking at Starlink, certainly a bright spot. Let's go over some of that data, what it's showing in terms of Starlink, the consumer and internet. Tell us a little bit about this.

Megan Brantley (0:23)

Yeah, so whenever we look at a company like SpaceX, obviously we're harvesting a lot of this consumer-facing mentions, consumer-facing data, and so that leans really heavily on Starlink. Now, you do have some consumers who are talking about the rocket side of things. Also, there's a massive AI compute side of the business, but Starlink is really where our data leans the strongest, I will say, and also just the heaviest volume. We have the clearest read here. When we look at overall company interests and demand, we have that up by about 126 percent year over year. Obviously, this is gaining a lot of steam in the consumer mind. When we look at Starlink demand specifically, so if you were to zoom in on just that segment, we have actual switching mentions up by about 172 percent year over year. This chart right here shows you just search interests for Starlink products.

I think that this is really interesting because this is the first time that we're seeing Starlink really go mainstream.

Obviously, the segment garnered a lot of attention yesterday as Starship reached orbit. I think dropped about 26 new satellites and these new satellites have about 10 times the bandwidth of prior satellites. This is now a ramp up and a scale up that is transitioning Starlink from being something that maybe you used if you were in a really inaccessible area where traditional fiber couldn't reach you. Maybe if you like to camp, you had the Starlink Mini. But now we see higher adoption just among even regular consumers and a lot of switching missions. So I think that this is while SpaceX builds out its massive AI compute power and obviously builds out its rockets to service a lot of these Starlink products. Starlink itself is really the profit engine right now for the company.

SPEAKER_3 (2:21)

You know, Megan, I look at the breakdown of this company. There's space with the Falcon and Dragon and the Starship. There's connectivity with Starlink. That's what you talked about. That's the one bringing in most of the revenue right now. Also, StarShield and then AI and platform with XAI and X, the old Twitter is part of this company. So your data really spells out where they're bringing in money and where they're spending money. They're spending a lot of money on getting XAI ready and the compute and everything they need there. Starlink is a more, I wouldn't call it a mature company, but it's older than some of the others that they're dealing with.

That's really where the revenue is coming from. But I guess what I'm asking you is, we all understand Starlink. What's the next one? Right? Is Rockets, are they going to start bringing in more revenue than expenses? Is it going to be X, the old Twitter? Is it going to be, what's the next profitable company here? We see Starlink, your data points out clearly, Starlink is profitable. What's the next one, Megan?

Megan Brantley (3:37)

You know, profitability right now, I think that that's tough. I think whenever you think about the overall growth in revenue, that AI compute bucket is really interesting. Obviously, this is where SpaceX is spending the most to build out, but it's also growing at a very fast clip. I think that its highest growth rate was here just in this last quarter, and you have companies like Anthropic who are spending over a billion dollars a month renting this compute power from SpaceX. So you can imagine the potential there for future growth. I think on Anthropic's IPO, they said that they could spend up to 84 billion through 2029 on AI compute renting that power. So I think that there's a tremendous opportunity there, and we really haven't even touched on data centers in space, which is a crazy talking point and crazy concept to talk about, but that's a vision that Musk is chasing. So I think that this is a company where obviously a lot of growth and a lot of vision at stock price right now is kind of focused on that future vision. So not necessarily what's profitable now, like you mentioned, like Starlink, but where is the company in 2030?

Investors are really betting on that vision right now.