WTF Is Happening at SpaceX: Why Launch Monopoly Meets Orbital Internet

In March 2026, Tesla, SpaceX, and XAI jointly announced something called Terafab, a $25 billion advanced chip fabrication complex in Austin, Texas, which is targeting 100,000 wafer starts per month scaling to a million. Buyers get a company that has a near monopoly on orbital launch and a rapidly scaling global internet infrastructure with 9 million paying subscribers growing at an insane clip with over 15 billion dollars in government contract backlog through 2030. Right now, Falcon 9 costs customers roughly $2,700 to $3,000 per kilogram to get something into orbit. Europe's Ariane 6 costs $4,000 to $6,000 per kilogram. Go back 10 or 20 years and one is talking 10, 20, even $50,000 per kilogram. That's 30 to 300 tons reduction from the current Falcon 9 prices, and it's over a thousand time reduction from where the industry was 10 years ago. Overall, this points to specialized systems and vertically integrated players shaping what comes next far more than surface narratives suggest.

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