Elon Musk’s SpaceX has told investors that it plans to launch a new Starlink mobile service for US consumers, in a move that would upend the country’s multibillion-dollar phone network market.
The company’s president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, told investors during a recent IPO roadshow that the group was considering launching a Starlink retail product and could build its own terrestrial US mobile network, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The move would require Starlink to build a new retail offering by selling mobile contracts to individual customers, competing directly with the three big US network operators Verizon Wireless, AT&T. and T-Mobile.