European satellite operator Eutelsat‘s CEO Jean-Francois Fallacher on Sunday shared that the company is seeing steady demand for its services in the U.S. despite pushback from SpaceX and its CEO, Elon Musk.
US Demand Steady
In an interview with Reuters, Fallacher shared that his company’s demand from U.S.-based companies, as well as the Pentagon, was resilient. “Both businesses and the Department of Defense have appetite for alternative solutions,” the CEO said in the interview, as it was in talks with governments to have Earth observation and communications payloads on its satellites.
SpaceX, in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on April 16, urged the agency to limit access for operators to the U.S. market whose governments block U.S. companies, the report said. It also pointed towards European regulators’ EU Space Act, which could limit U.S. companies’ access to the region, urging the FCC to retaliate with similar measures.
Risks Amid IPO
The news comes as SpaceX is gearing up for an IPO this summer, where it will be targeting a valuation of $1.75 trillion, aiming to raise over $75 billion.
The company was also warning investors of risks associated with its in-house AI compute efforts, as well as Musk’s ambitious goal of having orbital datacenters and colonies on Mars.
On the other hand, the space flight company also signed a deal to either acquire AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion later this year or enter a $10 billion partnership with the company. Cursor is also being eyed as an investment opportunity by chipmaker NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA).
SpaceX And Musk’s Loans
CEO Musk reportedly used SpaceX to borrow over $500 million with a 1% interest rate, as well as used the commercial space flight giant to swallow his cash-burning AI lab xAI. Meanwhile, NYU academic Aswath Damodaran says SpaceX is likely to be roughly 30% overvalued.
Wedbush Securities investor Dan Ives, on the other hand, reaffirmed bullish sentiments on SpaceX, sharing that the company would likely merge with Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) sometime around next year. He said that there was an “80%, 90% type of chance” that the companies would merge by the first half of 2027.
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