[bryanlarsen]

They reported cash flow positive. "Cash flow positive" is a much stronger statement than "profitable" because it doesn't let you play games with amortization. So it included the ongoing cost of replacing satellites plus 100% costs of putting up new ones for future use where normal accounting would allow you to amortize those costs.

SpaceX is obviously quite profitable. They're obviously spending many billions annually on salaries, Starlink launches and Starship development yet they haven't raised significant money via debt or equity financing rounds in the last few years.

[mothballed]

Starlink is operated by Starlink Services, LLC which allows SpaceX to play all sorts of accounting tricks by mixing in engineered contracts with SpaceX.

[bryanlarsen]

Independent estimates are for $5B of profit on $10B of revenue for Starlink for 2025.

You don't get numbers like that by subsidizing it from the ~$1B/year launch business.

https://www.advanced-television.com/2025/10/01/forecast-8-2m...

[inemesitaffia]

The money has to show up somewhere.