Elon Musk’s vision for orbital data centers is meeting resistance from an unexpected quarter. Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, recently argued that building data centers in space won’t meaningfully cut costs and will take too long to matter in the AI race.
Son made the comments at a shareholder meeting, saying “in the battle for AI, the next few years will be far more important than what might happen a decade or so from now.” It’s a notable stance given SoftBank’s history of making bold — and sometimes wild — technology bets.
TechCrunch’s Equity podcast picked up on the discussion. Co-host Sean O’Kane pointed out the irony: if you’re building a constellation of satellites that need replacement every few years, you’re guaranteeing more launch business for SpaceX. And SpaceX’s launch dominance relies heavily on Starlink — without it, their market share drops from roughly 90% to maybe 20-30%.
The broader context is an industry desperate for compute. Companies like Groq, Allbirds-turned-neo-cloud-provider, and SpaceX itself are all trying to lease out computing power. Whether orbital data centers can be economically viable remains an open question, but Son’s willingness to voice skepticism adds weight to the doubters’ side.
