Hey there,
I know you are likely getting tired of all of this Elon Musk-SpaceX IPO stuff, but there’s a new amendment to the SpaceX (SPCX) S1, filed on June 5, that includes a very new multi-year $30.4 billion contract with Google LLC. This contract was signed seven days before the much anticipated June 12 SpaceX IPO.
The Downlink will produce an episode on June 12, the day SpaceX lists on the Nasdaq. For a livestreamed conversation, Chris Quilty of Quilty Space, George Pullen of MilkyWayEconomy, and Lou Whiteman of the Motley Fool will join me to break down what the IPO means for the space sector.
This contract with Google LLC, a.k.a. Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), not only dwarfs the two recent U.S. Space Force contracts, worth $6.45 billion, it adds a new revenue stream for SpaceX’s AI segment, which lost $6.355 billion in 2025, according to the SPCX S1. The new amendment says that SpaceX will receive $920-million-a-month from Google for AI-compute services, starting in October and running through June 2029.
According to this second S1 amendment, SpaceX must provide Google with access to roughly 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs — specialized semiconductor chips — and supporting infrastructure by October 1. In return, SpaceX’s AI segment gets revenue on the books, days before the June 12 IPO event.
But it’s just not that simple.
Google is not just a chip-seeking customer
As part of a 2015 $1 billion fundraising round, Google invested $900 million for a 7.4% stake in SpaceX, then a space launch services and communications company that valued itself being worth $12 billion. The other $100 million came from Fidelity.
Because of recent acquisition deals and more fundraising, Google’s stake is believed to be around 6% today. If SPCX shares maintain a price of $135 per share after the IPO, Benzinga is reporting that Google stands to realize something like $122 billion.
To address the AI segment cash-burn (losses) and at least maintain equity value, SpaceX and its stakeholders, like Google, will want that non-space business segment to demonstrate revenue growth potentiality on paper before Friday’s IPO.
Reading the deal’s in-flight safety card before launch
The SpaceX-Google services deal is much like the SpaceX-Anthropic deal: It has clearly marked exits.
The Anthropic deal was billed as being worth $45 billion, generated from the AI company leasing 325,000 Nvidia GPUs from SpaceX for $1.25 billion a month starting immediately through May 2029. Either party can exit the contract with 90 days notice. Musk, the SpaceX CEO, even substantiated the instability of the deal and curtailed its lifespan from years to 180 days on May 28.
The Google deal stipulates that Google can exit the deal in October if SpaceX does not deliver what was promised, or with 90 days notice. The revenue depends on performance, meaning a build-out of capacity — cash burn. And exits are clearly marked.
If you want deeper analysis from someone other than a journalist, I recommend reading Greg Collins of Cape Fear Advisors, who Morningstar has quoted from in the past. I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me.
What’s in the episode
Exporting precisely manufactured electronic components, found in every industrial sector you can think of, has inextricably woven Taiwan into the fabric of the global economy. But it has not made Taiwan secure from a belligerent and powerful neighbor, the People’s Republic of China, that regularly severs undersea cables and threatens a military blockade.
The Taiwan Space Agency’s mission is to develop Taiwan's indigenous space capabilities — satellites, communications, and eventually rockets — as one pillar of the island's broader strategy for security and resilience.
In this episode I sit down with TASA Director General Wu Jong-Shinn. Most who know him personally call him Dr. Wu, but the Taiwanese call him “Uncle Rocket.”
“Without rockets, nothing is going to happen.” — Dr. Wu Jong-Shinn, Director General, Taiwan Space Agency
Roughly 14 years ago, Wu decided to become a rocket crusader, when he founded the Advanced Rocket Research Center at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, with no government funding and no institutional support — just a belief that Taiwan could and should build its own rockets.
Wu and his students started a crowdfunding campaign and raised nearly $6 million from noodle stand owners, construction workers, and white-collar professionals, who believed in his dream. This story inspired the Taiwanese rock band Mayday to record “Tough,” a 2016 hit featuring award-winning actor Tony Leung Ka-fai.
Such an outpouring of popular support resulted in at least one rocket launch and quite possibly Taiwan’s Space Development Act, which created the space agency Wu now leads. The progress TASA has made under Wu’s leadership has not gone unnoticed. In April, NASA invited Taiwan — for the first time — to participate directly in the Artemis program.
In this episode, Wu walks through what Taiwan is building and what it is for, and why the world’s most consequential technology manufacturer has decided that space is not a luxury — it is the next frontier of national survival.
The episode is available here and on all major podcast platforms, or you can watch the interview here on YouTube.
Who’s in the episode
Wu Jong-Shinn — Director General, Taiwan Space Agency (TASA)
Reading
"NASA reverses evacuation alert order for astronauts aboard space station" — Joey Roulette, Reuters, June 5, 2026
“Meet the new director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida” — Rick Neale, Florida Today, June 7, 2026
“Inside This SpaceX Billionaire’s Mission To Build A Fleet Of Outer Space Taxis” — John Hyatt and Alicia Park, Forbes, June 7, 2026
“Implementing Schedule Policy/Career in the Excepted Service” — The White House, June 3, 2026
