SpaceX is overhauling its data center construction strategy, shifting from rapid deployment to prioritizing system reliability. The company is installing more backup power and cooling systems and conducting more thorough testing before bringing facilities online.
More than a dozen data center leaders have departed SpaceX in recent weeks, replaced by engineers from the rocket division. Elon Musk, who visits the Memphis site almost every Sunday, wrote on X after the outage that the company was "taking corrective action to ensure this does not happen again."
The business math is stark: slower builds mean delayed revenue. Each month a data center sits offline is margin lost against the capital already committed.
While the data center build-out slows, SpaceX's defense business is expanding. The United Kingdom has committed nearly $40 million to SpaceX satellite services. The UK Defense Ministry purchased $17.6 million in Starshield services—the military-grade version of Starlink with enhanced encryption—and $22.3 million in standard Starlink services. The UK deployed approximately 1,000 Starshield terminals and 500 Starlink terminals, making it the first country outside the United States to publicly acknowledge Starshield use.
SpaceX stock recorded slight gains Thursday. This came as the market absorbed the expiration of lock-up restrictions on insider shares: approximately 319 million shares became eligible for sale Wednesday, representing about 7 percent of insider holdings. The 90-day lock-up period ended following SpaceX's June 12 IPO at $135 per share, which raised $85.7 billion and valued the company at $1.77 trillion while floating less than 5 percent of equity.
