Elon Musk’s Starlink achieves break-even cash flow; IPO soon?

Earlier this year, the President and COO of SpaceX, the renowned aerospace company co-founded by Elon Musk, heralded a significant milestone for their satellite internet venture, Starlink, by announcing its first-ever “cash flow positive quarter” in 2022. 

Now, as we fast forward to November, Elon Musk has revealed that Starlink has reached another pivotal point, achieving “breakeven cash flow.” 

“Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow! Excellent work by a great team,” Musk wrote in a November 2 post on his social media platform, X.

“Starlink is also now a majority of all active satellites and will have launched a majority of all satellites cumulatively from Earth by next year.”

– Musk noted in his tweet.

Reaching breakeven cash flow means that a company’s operational revenues equal its operational expenses, resulting in no net cash surplus or deficit. This is a crucial milestone because it signifies financial sustainability. 

It demonstrates that the company is self-sustaining and can cover its ongoing costs without relying on external funding, a vital factor for achieving long-term growth and stability.

Will Starlink go public?

In 2021, Musk said SpaceX would spin off and take Starlink public once the company’s cash flow becomes reasonably predictable, as doing it “sooner than that would be very painful.”

Now, two years later, SpaceX reached a significant turning point when it comes to financial stability, reigniting speculations about the unit potentially going public.

Since 2019, the satellite internet company has grown its network in low-Earth orbit to about 5,000 satellites, becoming the biggest satellite operator in the world and a rival to industry giants such as Viasat and OneWeb. 

However, there are no clear indicators of when and if Starlink will launch its initial public offering (IPO). Last year, Musk told employees that taking the unit public was not likely until 2025 or later. 

“Being public is definitely an invitation to pain,” Musk told SpaceX employees in 2022. “And the stock price is just distracting.”

At the moment, Starlink owner SpaceX is currently valued at around $150 billion and is one of the most valuable private companies on the globe.