SpaceX wants the Pentagon to pay five times more for Starlink in the Iran war
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SpaceX has asked the US Defense Department to pay approximately $25,000 per Starlink terminal — five times the current $5,000 rate — citing the high-bandwidth, low-latency demands of guiding LUCAS suicide drones over Iran. SpaceX also wants up to $500m upfront plus $100m/month for a direct-to-cell capability to help Iranians bypass government internet blackouts. The Pentagon has pushed back on both requests. The dispute highlights the DoD's growing single-vendor dependency on SpaceX across launch, connectivity, and Starshield services, and the timing is notable: SpaceX is targeting a ~$1.75tn IPO valuation with a roadshow starting June 8, meaning any pricing uplift booked now would appear in the S-1. Competing alternatives like Amazon's Project Kuiper and Sweden's TERASi RU1 exist but haven't yet matched Starlink's scale.
