SpaceX's 'Crushingly Good Performance' Spurred By Its Ambition, Says CEO Elon Musk

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Friday that the lack of ambition of countries and companies is their shortfall when it comes to space exploration.

What Happened: Musk said, “Countries & companies aim too low. Their lack of ambition is their shortfall.” He was was responding to a report by The Wall Street Journal noting that satellite operators and government agencies were increasingly dependent on SpaceX for orbital launches.

SpaceX’s objective, on the other hand, extends far beyond Earth’s orbit, aiming for a multiplanetary future, and even an incremental progress toward that goal translates into exceptional performance in Earth orbit, Musk added.

As per the report, SpaceX rockets powered 66% customer flights from launch sites across America in 2022 and 88% in the first half of 2023. Only earlier this month, SpaceX launched the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission to a Sun-Earth L2 transfer orbit from Florida.

The company has launched 244 times in total so far.

Why It Matters: In an interview with author Ashlee Vance last month, Musk said that he doesn’t really think about competition but focuses on improving Starlink and rockets.

"If competitors succeed, that's great," Musk said, adding that SpaceX has launched competitor satellites without charging extra.

Despite his nonchalant approach to competition, Musk expects SpaceX to deliver 80% of Earth's payload to orbit this year.

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